Are you married or in a long term relationship? If you are then I’m sure you will have settled into a role within the relationship where you each have certain jobs that you do. Very commonly there will be one person that takes the lead when it comes to your joint finances often leaving the other person blissfully ignorant of what bank accounts, savings plans and life insurance policies etc you have together and how to access these. But just consider for a moment what would happen if the one who sorts out the finances were to die suddenly – how on earth would the surviving person cope, would they know where to start with the finances, would they find the necessary paperwork and even if they did would they know what to do with it?
Royal London have recently conducted research on the financial and practical consequences of loosing a partner. They interviewed over 500 people who had experienced bereavement in the last 5 years. The results were surprising:
- 7 in 10 people said they weren’t properly prepared either financially or practically
- 1 in 5 found the financial impact of lower income was most difficult to deal with
- Less than half of them had made a Will
- Only 3 in 10 had actually talked about the prospect of dying with their partner and almost nobody had actually taken steps to prepare
There are some really simple things that you can do to help prepare for the inevitable which will make things easier for the one left behind at what will already be a difficult time.
- Keep your finances in order, keep everything in one place and properly labelled
- make a list of all the key details, account numbers, contacts numbers etc
- make sure that your partner knows where this is and understands it
Planning your funerals together may not feel like a fun thing to do. But it really will make things that little bit easier if one of you dies. You don’t have to plan every little detail but agreeing the big things, for example, whether you want to be buried or cremated, whether you want a church service or something simple at the crematorium. Taking a practical approach and having t*hat difficult discussion early can save a lot extra stress at what will already be an emotional time and by doing it sooner rather than later you could save money by locking in the price of your funeral at today’s prices.
If you want to know more about how funeral plans work and how they could save you £’000s over the long term then take a look at some of other articles
