Early in my career I realized that had an event ended differently, would family know financial and personal details – where to find documents or other critical information should I become incapacitated or worse. Those thoughts led to the creation of this document more than 25 years ago.
Talking with friends and family, several asked if they could have a copy. One doesn’t need to be in a hazardous career to have a life changing event, be involved in a car crash, have an unexpected health event, or be a victim of a crime to benefit from having vital information in a single document.
It was a simple task to remove my information and add instructions and clues to what each of the sections should detail. Feel free to delete what doesn’t pertain to you. Add more if needed. If you do, suggestions are always welcome by adding a comment or submitting an email via the contact page. They get vetted by discussions with several long-time users of this document. If the consensus is that the suggestion is beneficial to many, it is added. If the suggestion is not added, it simply means it was likely to have a very narrow or unique need to the contributor.
Newly added sections can be copied and pasted to your existing work. That’s why the template is available in an editable file. It was created and edited in Microsoft Word. If Microsoft Word isn’t available, I have performed some quick testing with other word processing applications such as Google Docs and LibreOffice, an Open Source (free) download with Microsoft compatibility for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more.
I have no idea the years and specifics of the original document and revisions until this template was created. Therefore, the change log will only have what was added since making it available so that comparisons to your file can be made. The hierarchy begins with the oldest change as the first entry and the most recent the last.
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Revisions:
- Added to the Retirement Accounts section sub-sections for Social Security and Medicare.
- Loans section – made sense to add a table. Should something happen those handling your finances should know about loans and payment information.
- Medical information – the thought behind this is a “what if” your family needs to tell a hospital what doctor has your medical records, what medication you’re on… tables created.
- I was asked why the very first section had names, social security numbers, and dates of birth. This information is helpful for tracking beneficiaries, and children or grandchildren you have savings/college/other accounts for. The question posed also made me think a table would be better than the previous version’s free text.
- Two updates:
- a) added a paragraph in the Wills section instructions to include post-mortem information such as pre-purchased burial plots
- b) Added a column for phone numbers in the table for names, social security numbers, and dates of birth