6 Ways To Help Your Family After You Die

Let’s face it, talking about our own death (or even simply acknowledging that it’s inevitable) can feel daunting and weird. However, it’s important to consider what might happen when you do die, what choices you’d want your family to make on your behalf in relation to important things like funerals and dividing up your assets, and the tasks they’d be forced to undertake while they bid you farewell.

Grief is tough, whether the death was expected or unexpected, so it’s important to consider taking steps that might ease the burden on your loved ones when you do die.

Here are a few easy things you can do to make things a little easier for your family:

1. Collate all your passwords and important documents

You might know all your passwords off by heart, or maybe you have them saved safely on your Notes app or computer. Regardless of where your passwords are kept, it’s essential you write them down and tell your loved ones exactly how to access them in the case of your death.

This will make things much easier for them when it comes time to access your Will, your emails, your bank details (if needed), your social media, your insurance, and more. It can also be worthwhile saving important documentation pertaining to things like insurance in one place and letting your loved ones know, so they can easily access everything they need to once you pass.

2. Write a Will

One of the most important things you can do before you die (or before you no longer have the capacity to), is write a legal Will. A Will is a legal document that stipulates exactly what should happen to all your assets once you pass. It’s essential, really, and minimises the risk of disputes (or people making decisions you wouldn’t necessarily agree with) after you’ve died.

And guess what? You can start writing your Will online today with Willed. It takes just 15 minutes to get started.

3. Create a list of all your assets and where they can be found

Whether you have heaps of jewellery you’ll be passing down to loved ones, or you have multiple bank accounts with money in them, it might be worth making a list of anything and everything, and detailing where each item (or asset) can be found. For example, you can list all your bank accounts and the banks they’re with, the location of your engagement ring and any family heirlooms you’d like your loved ones to keep instead of throwing out once you’re gone. If you have life insurance policies, stocks or shares, it’s also worth writing the details of these down.

4. Choose an Executor and Power of Attorney (don’t forget tolet them know they’re your chosen people)

We’ve written detailed guides on Executors and Power of Attorney, so definitely give those a read if you have no clue what we’re referring to. But, we definitely want to mention that it’s important to select the Executor of your estate and POA before you lose the capacity to choose them. This will mean that someone has the responsibility to make financial and medical decisions on your behalf when you no longer can, and that someone else (or perhaps it’s the same person) is responsible for distributing your estate when the time comes.

It may be an unwelcome surprise for some people to be given such an important role in your affairs. So make sure you tell your loved ones that you’ve selected them, and make sure they feel comfortable carrying out the role when the time comes.

5. Prepay and pre-plan your funeral and/or cremation

Yep, this is something you can do! In fact, we offer prepaid funerals and cremations here at Willed. You might want to be cremated at a specific cemetery, have a certain funeral director run the show, or maybe you don’t want a funeral at all. Whatever you want, you can stipulate it, so it’s worthwhile making moves today.

6. Tidy your home and dispose of anything you no longer want or need.

The task of cleaning out the home of a deceased loved one can be extremely challenging, for more reasons than one. It can be a grief-stricken trip down memory lane, chaotic when there’s lots to sort through, and overwhelming. If your home is filled with unwanted items – like old clothes, random items nobody would want or need (and that you no longer want or need), or just lots of clutter – we’d recommend sorting through it and cleaning everything out. This will make the process a lot easier for your loved ones when the time comes.

Wrap up 

We all want to make life easy for our friends and family – especially once we’ve passed and they’ve been given the task of sorting through our stuff and making end-of-life plans on our behalf. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to lighten their load. And the best part about doing exactly that is that you get to decide on what you want, post-death.