A Personal Story: How Senior Paralegal Stephanie Helped Her Aging Parents Consolidate Their Financial Accounts With These 6 Questions
How many financial accounts are too many? We ask this question when we do estate planning for seniors and even our younger clients. Lack of account management applies to more than just bank accounts; it extends to CDs, money market accounts, investment accounts, home equity lines of credit, my account, his account, our account, store credit cards, credit cards for large expenditures, travel, and so forth.
If you’re asking the question, then the answer is probably yes, you have too many accounts!
To determine if consolidation of financial accounts is needed, consider:
- Do you have an up-to-date estate plan that your attorneys regularly review?
- Does this plan include a record of all financial accounts?
- Do you have a trusted relationship with a financial advisor?
- Do you meet with your fiduciary agent regularly to review all your banking activities?
- Does your fiduciary agent have access to all of your online banking?
And, most importantly:
- In less than an hour, could your fiduciary agent walk into your home and put their hands on copies of your estate plan? Could they access statements/passbooks/checkbooks for each of your financial accounts? Could they get into your online data files to access credit cards/lines of credit accounts and corresponding statements?
These are the six questions I asked my own aging parents. I spent a year working with them to reduce the number of investment, banking, and credit card accounts they had. When we started, they had various bank accounts in institutions spread out in 3 states and wallets bulging with credit cards they seldom used. Our goal was to manage all bank accounts in one place and to be able to answer yes to the questions above.
Lo and behold, almost a year after we started the process, they were the victims of identity theft. Someone gained online access to their savings account, necessitating an immediate shutdown of every financial account. It was an overwhelming task but I dread to think how much worse it would have been had we not already been working on consolidating their accounts and therefore their exposure.
As with my parents, most people don’t consider how many accounts are too many until they are older and increasingly dependent on others to manage more and more of their affairs. Perhaps you are an outlier and appreciate the wisdom of limiting accounts, but your parents are either not on board or not forthcoming with their financial situation. Estate planning for seniors can be difficult waters to navigate! (If your folks are reluctant to discuss their finances with you, we’ve gathered some strategies to broach the topic in our article, Helping Seniors Get their Estate Planning Affairs in Order.)
How We Keep Your Accounts Organized and Your Estate Plan Current
At Borchers, we utilize an Asset Trust OrganizerTM (ATO) to record all your pertinent information and ensure all your personal and financial details are at your fingertips in one concise, organized, up-to-date document. We have established relationships with trusted financial advisors that we can refer you to. We are here to help. Our TrustSupportTM program ensures that your circumstances and estate plans are regularly reviewed by your attorney or senior paralegal, giving you peace of mind.
If you answered no to any of the 6 questions above, then chances are you have too many accounts and have some work to do to rectify the situation.
Schedule a complimentary 15 minute introductory call with one of our paralegals to discuss next steps to a more streamlined approach.
