Postmortem planning is the process of considering what will be taking place after you pass away. Stating your wishes in writing is part of the equation, but the plan must spring into action.

If you utilize a last will to state your wishes regarding the way that your personal property is to be distributed the individual who will handle everything is your executor. The executor will have a variety of different duties to perform. These would include the payment of final debts and inventorying and preparing assets for distribution.

You have to ask yourself what your executor will need to be able to handle all of these tasks. There are going to be a lot documents that he or she must be able to access to perform the function.

These would most certainly include your insurance policies. You may be surprised to hear that a great deal of money is sitting untouched because insurance policy beneficiaries have not come forward to claim what is rightfully theirs.

Research that has been done by the highly respected magazine Consumer Reports indicates that unclaimed insurance proceeds amount to at least $1 billion.

A lot of people hold the subject of estate planning at arm’s length for various reasons. In many instances family members pay the price. Make sure that you choose a solid and capable executor and communicate with this representative so that he or she is fully aware of the existence of any and all insurance policies that may exist.

Larry Parman
Author, President and Founding Attorney
Parman & Easterday