How do I build a death binder and what should I include in it?

Ralph
00:00:00

Have you ever wondered what would happen to your loved ones if something unexpected happened to you tomorrow? Would they know where to find your important documents? Would they know how to access your accounts or even understand your final wishes?

Well, today we're tackling a crucial but often avoided topic that's creating a death binder.

I know that might sound ominous, but I'm going to show you exactly how to prepare your family to handle your affairs with confidence and more importantly, with peace of mind. So stay tuned as we answer the question, how do I build a death binder? And what essential items should I include?

Narrator
00:00:35

Welcome to the Ask Ralph Podcast where listening to an experienced financial professional with over 30 years of experience can help you make sense of confusing questions, current headlines and industry trends about taxes, small business, financial decision making, investment strategies, and even the art of proper budgeting. Ask Ralph makes the complex simple by sharing his real world knowledge from a Christian perspective with all things financial.

Now here's your host, Ralph Estep Jr.

Ralph
00:01:03

Well, thank you for joining me today. I am honored to help you on your financial journey and each and every day is just that, it's our journey. So we got to embrace that journey. Well if you missed yesterday's show, I talked about 11 of the most popular misconceptions of money in the scriptures. And let me tell you, I felt like it was an eye-opening discussion. So if you missed it, I'm going to encourage you to go check it out.

Well, today's listener question comes to us from Michigan, and this is from Sarah, and she writes this. "Dear Ralph, I've been struggling with the thought of what would happen to my family if something unexpected happened to me. I have accounts everywhere, insurance policies, and important documents, but they're scattered all over the place. I handle most of the finances in our family. My husband doesn't even know where to begin looking. The stress of leaving my family unprepared keeps me up at night. Can you help me create a system to organize everything?"

Well, that is such a great question, Sarah. And we're going to handle that today and I'm going to encourage you, every Tuesday night, if you've got a question, you can join me live, that's right, the Ask Ralph show live every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM Eastern standard time.

And listen, here's the best part. Starting this week, we're going to have a weekly drawing for a hundred-dollar Amazon gift card for everybody that is there and taking part in the discussion. So I'm going to encourage you to join us. I could get, like I said, every Tuesday night, 7:00 PM Eastern time. You can go to askralphpodcast.com/live.

Well you know, Sarah I always like to start with something from the word of God that matches your question. And I found this one today that is relevant to our discussion. It comes from Proverbs 13:22. And it says this. "A good person leaves an inheritance for their children's children." I think that's a powerful verse and it'll be the, what we stood to set the stage for today's discussion.

So you might be asking Ralph, what exactly is a death binder? It sounds ominous and why do you think it's so crucial? Well, let me tell you why it's crucial. I'll give you a great example of this. Last October, my wife and I, and my oldest son took a trip to Germany. Left my youngest son here. Now he's 23. So it wasn't like I lift a little toddler around. One of the things when I was planning this to go away, I said, you know what?

There are so many things that I really need to prepare for so that, let's say for example, our plane crashes. Or we get held hostage in a foreign country. I know these are outlandish things, or maybe we have a medical emergency or something like that. And my son back here in the states needed to have access to those things.

I said, you know what? I got to prayer for this. And when I was doing that, I said, Hey, you know what a great idea would be to build this comprehensive binder with all the information of, all the important information so that if something happened to me or something happened to my wife or all three of us, it would give them the items that loved ones need. So, let me tell you about a call I got last month and it really drives home the importance of what I'm talking about. I got a call from this lady.

Her name was Maria. She'd been a long-time client of mine. I had been doing our taxes. We did some financial consulting. And her husband had just passed away, which is really a sad situation. They had been together a long time. And once she said to me, she said, Ralph, I'm really struggling. I'm trying to find our life insurance policies. I don't even know how to enter a bank account because he always handled that.

I have no clue what's going on with our retirement accounts. You know, she was really in pain and it was devastating. It was devastating to her. It was devastating to me to just to hear the sadness in her voice. I mean, she was dealing with the loss of her husband. But on top of that, she's trying to pull all these things together, kind of putting this puzzle together. And guess what?

Here's the honest to God truth. All of that is completely preventable. And it's why it's so crucial to understand how to protect your legacy. I'll give you another example. Just last week, a gentleman came in, we'll call him Robert. He came to see me. And he walked in the door. I noticed he was clutching this, this folder of just scattered papers.

I mean, these things were turned all sides of left, right, and upside down. We came in, sat down at my office and he said, Hey, Ralph, I got to tell you. My father just passed away three months ago. And he says, you can see it, dude. I'm grounded in paperwork. He said Ralph, it's like trying to put together this puzzle. It was completely confusing.

And he said, I know my dad had good intentions. My dad always took care of me. He took care of our family. But this stuff is a mess. His dad had never organized his estate documents. And it got emotional for Robert. I remember he looked at me with tears in his eyes and he said, Ralph, I don't want my kids to go through this. And see, that's why I did this show today about these deaths binders, because it's absolutely crucial. So, let me break down what it should contain and I'm going to explain each element a little bit later in the show. And I think the best thing you can do is to break it down into sections.

This will make it easier. So let's start with what I call the legal documents session. In this section, you're going to have your will. If you've got your trust, you're going to put those trust documents in it. If you've got an advanced medical directive or power of attorney, basically all of the legal documents that someone would need all of a sudden, you're not around to help show them where those things are. Another thing I'm going to put in there, our marriage certificates and divorce papers if that's applicable to you. I hope it's not, but if it is, I would put any marriage certificates. I will put divorce papers in there because you never know where you've got to go back and track and trace those type of things. Another thing I'm going to highly recommend you put in there are birth certificates for you and your children. Now as your children leave the nest and they go do their own thing,

I think that might be less important. But listen, if you're going to have a section for legal documents, why not keep those things in there because who knows if somebody might need one of those, if they're doing some probate work or some estate work. Another thing I'm going to recommend you do is have copies of your social security cards in there, both for you and your family, your children, all those sorts of things. If you served in the military, I would keep your military service records in there.

Now this will come in handy if let's say you pass away and your spouse wants or your family once they give you some sort of military recognition at the time of your death, they're going to need your military service records. And if you've got them in that binder, it be an easy place to find them. And finally, the last section of what I call a legal document section, I would have copies of your property deeds, copies of your vehicle titles.

And if the titles are held by the bank because you still owe money on them, then I would put copies of the registration forms. So those are all the things that I would put into that legal document section. It's an important part, but it's really that go-to place where they can find all those things.

Now, the second section I would have you do is what I call the financial accounts section. This is all your finances, like the, think of the big picture of what you owe, what you own and all that sort of thing. So you're going to list all your bank accounts. Now I have here in my discussion to tell you to list your passwords. That's really up to you. At least to list the bank accounts will be valuable if you've got some kind of password manager, might be a good idea to note that, Hey, I got passwords. I use this password manager.

s have sort of a default setting where you can leave a legacy contact. So I would do a good job of looking into that. Another thing you want to put in the financial account section is any investment or retirement account details. I mean, break it down. Who, when we did this for my son, I broke it down.

Here's our broker. Here's his address. Here's his phone number. Here's how you get in touch with him. Here are the accounts we have. Here are the accounts your mother has. Make sure you lay it all out. Now, if you're already collecting social security, I would also recommend putting your social security benefit information in there.

That could be as simple as that form that you get every year that shows what your benefits are and I didn't know if they still send those out. But you can always go to the social security administration website and grab a hold of that. Put that into that financial account section as well. That way, if somebody wants to go claim like the social security death benefit, or let's say you leave a spouse and you want to make sure they can go collect on your social security benefits, having that information there is crucial. Another thing I'm going to tell you to include in the financial account section is your credit card accounts.

Every single one of them. Take a snapshot of those, you know, make a copy of those. Put those in there. So and here, here's the best part of that. This can be backup for you. Let's say your wallet gets stolen or something like that, you'll have all that credit card information in there. I would take a picture of both sides of that.

I'd also list any outstanding debt you have. If you've got a mortgage or second mortgage or student loans and listen, this isn't just for older people. I would encourage anybody to have this death binder in place. Even if you're single, you're just starting now, anything you have, put it in this binder because I've handled this on shows in the past where parents have had to come in, unfortunately, and take care of the final affairs of their children. So it's really important you have all those things in there. Another thing I'm going to tell you to include in this is your tax returns. I would put the last three years of tax returns into this financial account section as well. And then finally, I would do what I call a comprehensive list of all your assets. Those are the things you own, that could be property.

That could be cars, that could be collectibles. Any kind of property that you own. Include investments, retirement accounts, and like I say, you're also going to counter that with any liabilities you have, all those credit card accounts if you've got them, any loans that you've got, all that stuff is all going into that financial account section.

One of the easiest things you can do is take a look at your bank statements for the last three months and see where's your money going and that will give you a tip that, oh, I better put this in there. Now another section of the binder, I'm going to call your insurance information section. And this one is really crucial. You want to put in there your life insurance policies with policy numbers, you want to put in there the name of the insurance company, the policy number, who to contact, what your benefits are, all of those types of things. It is vitally important like we talked about that, that client of mine, Maria, that's what she was struggling to find. She needed to, to put together her husband's final arrangements and she needed that life insurance information. Another thing I'm going to encourage you to put in there is your health insurance details. When you renew your insurance every year, they send you that card, make a copy of it, put it in your death binder.

I know that sounds ominous. Just what I'm calling you, but I really, you could call it a legacy binder, if that sounds better to you, but basically it's the go-to thing if something happens to you. So put your health insurance details in there, put your auto insurance documentation in there. If you're somebody like me, I've got not only auto insurance, but I also have what's called a umbrella policy. I would put the umbrella policy information in there as well.

If you own a home, put your homeowners policy in there. If you own multiple homes, put the multiple ones in there. Maybe you're just renting, but you've got a renter's insurance policy. Again, put that information in there. And finally, in that insurance section, I would put disability insurance information.

Now, maybe you've got that through your employer, but I would make note of that. And while I'm talking about that, if you've got other benefits from your employer, I would put those in this binder as well, so that someone would know who to contact at your employer. Who's the HR person, who's your direct supervisor so they know what to do and who to talk to when something like this happens. Now, here's some other important considerations with this. It's not simply one of these things that you want to set and forget. Once you build this binder, I'm going to encourage you to do what I call a regular review. And I would say, listen, put a reminder on your calendar and maybe it's every six months, do a review. Go through that binder and make sure everything is still up to date, because what you're going to find are things are going to happen. Changes occur in life.

Maybe you gone and went and gotten married, or maybe you got divorced unfortunately. Maybe you've had a birth or adoption of children. Maybe you've got a grandchild now and you made some changes to your beneficiaries. Maybe you purchased or sold some major assets, maybe that car that you had for 20 years, you traded it in or you sold it and got something new or maybe you've started doing collections of something, you know, all those things. Any time there's any changes in those financial circumstances, you want to make sure they're reflected in that binder. Now, there are also some other things to consider, and that's what I call estate planning components. And I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole right now, but this is where you might want to, when you're doing this, or you think about establishing, I've talked about it on the show many times what I call revocable living trust. So that way you can have control during your lifetime and then provide clear instructions for you after your passing. I mentioned in the show before, this is something that my wife and I did. We have these revocable trust. So this is a good time to think about that, while you're doing that binder, say, you know, maybe it's a good idea to go meet with an attorney, go sit down and go over what your plans are. Another thing you're going to want to do and in this regular review and if you put it all together is ensure that all your financial accounts have properly designated beneficiaries. I don't know how many times I've had situations with clients where they forgot to list a beneficiary and that can get really brutally ugly.

It could cause all kinds of issues, not the least of which are higher taxes. And another thing I'm wanting to encourage you to put in here is what I call charitable giving instructions. Listen, if that's part of your plan, if you're a faithful person and you want to make sure that with your final monies or whatever you have left, you wanted those to go to a particular charity or you want to do something with those things,

I think it's crucial that you put those things into that binder. And I'm going to share some action steps to get you started in a few minutes, but first I want to ask you a question. Do you feel overwhelmed with your finances? This discussion today does making you feel overwhelmed? Do you feel like you're all alone? Do you want to find financial freedom?

Do you want to escape the bondage of debt? Do you want to align your finances with your faith? A lot of us do. Do you feel like your dreams are slipping away? Do you live in this state of financial instability? Do you feel like you're living paycheck to paycheck? Do you feel frustrated? Do you feel hopeless and stuck? Well guess what?

If you're listening to the show, I've got great news for you. There is hope for you. And one of the ways you can find out how it was, I'm going to invite you to join the Ask Ralph show Insiders group. We've got a community of people who feel the same as you. These are people who are facing these same challenges. The only difference is they're mastering their finances.

They're living their dreams. And they're finding that peace of mind. And listen, they're feeling the same pain points as you are, the same ones that I'm feeling. But they're seeking to find that balance between their finances and their faith. And best of all, the insiders group is sharing answers. That's the whole point of it.

We're sharing solutions. And bigger than that, we're sharing hope. Apply to join our community. Just go to askralphpodcast.com/group and complete the questionnaire. Do it now and become a member of the insiders team. You're really going to appreciate it. Now I promise to give you some step-by-step process to get started today.

So here's what I'm going to tell you to do. So get out your piece of paper and a pen and write these things down. Number one, and also be in the show notes. Number one, purchase a durable three ring binder. That's where you're going to start. And like we talked about, you're going to create these essential sections.

We're going to have a legal documents session. We're going to have a financial accounts section. We're going to have an insurance policy section. Another I'm going to add here is what I call your emergency fund information. What are your go-to sources of liquid money so that if somebody has to put together a funeral for you or something like that, they know where to find it.

So that's a section. You're going to have a tax documents section. And you're going to have a passwords and digital assets section and that's all important. Now listen, I don't expect you to do this all at once. So I'm going to say this. Start with just one section this week. Take one section this week and do it, go to next week, do another section.

And then each week just add another section. But then here's the thing. I want you to put this on your calendar. Create that regular review schedule every six months. Make sure you're doing it every six months. Keep it up to date and make that change because the key is to start somewhere. Listen, I don't expect you to find perfection. Your family will thank you for taking this step of love and responsibility. You might be saying, Ralph, I don't get it.

Like, what's the difference between that and having a will? And here's the thing. A death binder goes beyond legal documents because it's going to include some practical day-to-day information your family would need. Think about these small details. I'm not trying to sell you on this, but it was telling you, here are some other things you might want to consider. These are just small details like where's the spare house key? What bills are on automatic payment? Who are your important medical contacts? And where are important family photos stored? That may seem like minuscule things, but these are things that you want to have in place so that your loved ones can know. You know, where's the spare key?

Where does dad keep the spare key for the house? I know dad set up auto pay for his bills. What are they? Whose this important medical context, and Hey, I'd really like to know where family photos are stored and see, he used to be that we had these boxes of photos, you know, the old photo albums everybody would drag out. But the truth is most people don't have those anymore.

If you're like me, your iPhone, I think I've got 20,000 photos stored in my iCloud account. And remember, we talked about this for a second, but that emergency fund documented in your death binder is crucial because you might find yourself in that immediate financial security that those people need if there's some unexpected events. It's going to help your family avoid taking on debt during difficult times. So I hope I've impressed upon you the importance of this. I've given you some steps to how to do it. Now tomorrow, we're going to discuss another crucial topic. And this one is really kind of crazy, but you're going to be amazed when I tell you. It's going to be how to avoid losing retirement benefits to online scammers. I'm going to tell you about how my mom nearly lost her entire retirement because somebody called her and sounded like they kind of knew who she was.

So I'm going to tell you to tune in tomorrow. I'm going to give you some essential protection strategies. And remember this as I close today. My passion is to help you achieve financial success. That's why I do what I do. That's why I turn on this microphone. I turn on this camera if you're watching this on YouTube or Rumble. I want to see you live out your dreams. And at the same time, I want to see you grow in your faith. Cause I know working together, we can master your finances from that Christian perspective. So as I always end the show, stay financially savvy out there and may God bless you abundantly.

Narrator
00:19:19

Thank you for joining us on the Ask Ralph podcast, and with a simple click to subscribe, we'll invite you back to our next episode. And remember, financial issues don't have to be complicated, just Ask Ralph.

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