It Could happen to us -- God Forbid -- Prevention is better than Cure
The Covid Pandemic was just too
cruel to the families of the people who passed away , just like that . They just disappeared .It just took them away in a a short span of time and in a flash. Most families were left not only to grieve the loss of the family member but to deal with many situations that they would have never
imagined that they would be dealing with. Yes , accidents do happen and there are fatalities but the pandemic was brutal in taking away many
lives. And just as many lost their close friends , near and dear ones ,
I lost some friends. I could not digest the fact that they were no more.
But the families of these friends who were colleagues or ex colleagues suffered
the most—
Here is why it was so painful to the families --- a
list of things that we can easily fix
. No one wants to die but it is
inevitable and what needs to be done is some amount of sharing with the family
so that it helps them to deal with the future
These are in no order of priority and
covers things ranging from Financial security to housekeeping of records.
- Hard Copies
-- Yes , the whole world is going digital and there are many ways to keep
records digitally. I am not against that. But please do print and keep
copies of your key records. These could
be Bank statements ( at least one statement every Quarter end ) ,
Demat Portfolio ( NSDL ) , any PMS , Insurance policy ( Master Policy )
and other records. Without any hard copy
being available, it is just too difficult to find out (post the person not being there).
- One Financial Planner
-- Keep one Financial Planner through whom
you should route all your
investments. I know that there are so
many people chasing to get investments done and in different domains. No
problem, go ahead and invest but have
those investments done through One
Financial Planner who is qualified ( with ARN number ). This will help to
get all investments tracked through one source. One known person had invested through
different banks and it was a herculean
task to track and trace the
investments.
- Be Secure but share :Do not use your personal PC like the one you would use at office. Share the password with your better half even if they are not interested in knowing it. Allow the family access to the PC . So what if they see some of the investments ? or even crazy stuff ?
- Family should
know: Share details with people at home. Sometimes , spouses
became sentimental and do not want to know about the Insurance polices and term and life
cover etc. Make sure you share with them or create a document that tracks
all of these and is printed and kept in a file , Home is safe, No one is
going to steal this through hacking and use it for their benefit.
- Print :Print and keep . share pay
slips.. Helps to follow through on withdrawals—For example PF , you need
the Unique number to start the process. And please check
your PF balances every quarter if not yearly and print the yearly
statement. The same applies for any other form of retiral benefit
- Contacts :Keep the family known of contacts at work that can
help in case of need. This is so important. I am aware of a friend , where
the family did not know whom to contact at work post his demise.
- Diligence :When
moving jobs , please move the PF balances and any other retiral balances
immediately to the new employer. No one is going to call the family and
tell that there are balances or other benefits that can be claimed
if you are not employed with them. I know of several cases where
balances remain but the employees/ family are untraceable
- No I:Ensure
your personal phone is accessible by the family and can be opened and
viewed. We cracked lot of the missing information on banks / PMS etc
through the SMS or WhatsApp messages – It took a bit of time to do this
and some cases , the bank guys were guardy in sharing the information.
- Joint Accounts :Keep
your bank accounts as joint. They help to have the account operational
- Nominations
are such a important thing . Ensure
that your nominations are updated and also current . Several SMS
come on this front but we may not
Everyone may think it is not going to be
me . But we never know that and so it is
better to be Safe than be Sorry to your dear Family
Title credit : P R Babu
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