Big Scary Adulting (Insurance, Estate Planning, Money)

[emilie]

I figured I would start a thread to talk about some of the less-fun adulting that needs to go on in preparation for a kid, especially for us FTMs who have never been through this before - stuff like budgeting, finances, wills, trusts, insurance, saving, etc.

I don't know about you guys, but I am the one who handles the finances and the stuff like this in our house.  I feel like there is so much to do over the next 6 months!

So, life insurance.  H has life insurance through work, but I don't, and I know if he leaves his job someday that insurance will go away.  I am thinking of getting a 20 or 25-year term policy for each of us.  There are so many insurance brokers and companies to choose from.  I also have never gotten life insurance and the idea of having to do some rando "medical exam" is weird to me.  

So - anyone have life insurance experience they can share?  Any companies you recommend, and any stories about going through the process?

[legalbeagle]

Hearting this thread so much because this is the less fun but so important stuff to do while you're pregnant! I'm a STM and I think I need to get some supplemental life insurance out on myself since we're having a baby (right now I have 7x my salary through work and DH has 7x salary plus supplemental insurance outside of work) and also add Baby #2 to our wills/trusts when born.

emilie, I'll ask my DH what company he uses for his supplemental insurance and report back. I don't remember him saying that the medical exam part was a big deal. I handle all of this stuff for our household too -- like DH would pay our credit card bill late every month if he were in charge -- so I know what you mean about it feeling like a lot of responsibility. Maybe you could get your DH to do some of the research or something to help out? I outsourced that part to my DH for life insurance.

[requiressnacks]

Great, thread emilie! I was just telling MH that we need some sort of plan with regard to this stuff.

Any advice on what company to use for life insurance and/or some sort of will would be helpful.

[emilie]

May 20, 2016 13:18:11 GMT -5 legalbeagle said:

Hearting this thread so much because this is the less fun but so important stuff to do while you're pregnant! I'm a STM and I think I need to get some supplemental life insurance out on myself since we're having a baby (right now I have 7x my salary through work and DH has 7x salary plus supplemental insurance outside of work) and also add Baby #2 to our wills/trusts when born.

emilie , I'll ask my DH what company he uses for his supplemental insurance and report back. I don't remember him saying that the medical exam part was a big deal. I handle all of this stuff for our household too -- like DH would pay our credit card bill late every month if he were in charge -- so I know what you mean about it feeling like a lot of responsibility. Maybe you could get your DH to do some of the research or something to help out? I outsourced that part to my DH for life insurance.

I actually enjoy doing it.  H does a lot of other stuff around the house so I don't mind!  There is just a lot to think about.

[Deleted]

We started looking at budgeting earlier this week. Daycare is so expensive, but Dh is due for a raise that might help cover most of it. As for life insurance we'll just go through our insurance company (USAA). My friend has them too and said it was really easy to just add it on and she was able to not have to do a physical too. Dh's work life insurance only covers an incident at work so that doesn't do me much good since the reality of a software engineer having a life and death situation at work is slim to none.

[kaydee0402]

We both of have life insurance through work. DH's is covered by mi. l.it. ary and it's pretty awesome. Granted, I hope we never have to use it, but we get a huge payout up front and then I receive all of his pay and benefits until I die or remarry. And his life insurance coverage is the same regardless if he's active or retired. My life insurance is through my job. I might look into getting something else in case I ever quit/lose my job.

We had wills drawn up at marriage. Right now, it states that if the one dies, the other gets all the money and custody of any children we have now or in the future. If we both die, everything, money/possessions/children, go to my parents. However, my parents are starting to get up there in age, so we might change it to my sister after Baby #2 arrives.

No trusts, but I have a pension plan. My husband a TSP account through his work. If one of us dies, the other gets it, if we both die, it goes to the kids when they turn 18, entrusted to their guardians prior.

Insurance is tougher I guess. You just have to look at who has the better plan, what the benefits/copay is and what your network options are for pedi. Ours was easy, we're all on DH's insurance.

I also recommend a Power of Attorney. If something happens to DS while DH is gone, and they need both parents to sign off on something, I have POA to sign and act for DH. This is handy in case I have to pull DS out of daycare, sign him up for a new one, get him a passport...things like that. Always get a POA.

[littlelion]

How does one go about making a will? If I need a lawyer, how do I find one? I had a hard time choosing an immigration lawyer.

[requiressnacks]

There are a lot of resources on the Suze Orman page (I'm a huge fan of hers!)

www.suzeorman.com/resource-center/

[emilie]

May 20, 2016 14:30:03 GMT -5 requiressnacks said:

There are a lot of resources on the Suze Orman page (I'm a huge fan of hers!)

www.suzeorman.com/resource-center/

I miss Suze's show soooo much.

[emilie]

USAA is military-only, right? (Or you have to have a relative in the military?) I have heard such great things but I don't think I qualify.

[kaydee0402]

emilie, military or family. My brother isn't military, but he opened a Navy Federal account because my husband is is.

[emilie]

I frequent a couple investing/personal finance message boards and I saw this site recommended for term life insurance quotes:

www.term4sale.com

I just wrote an independent agent in my neighborhood that I found on Yelp and hopefully he can help us find coverage that is reasonable.

[emilie]

May 20, 2016 14:27:10 GMT -5 littlelion said:

How does one go about making a will? If I need a lawyer, how do I find one? I had a hard time choosing an immigration lawyer.

I would like to know this as well if anyone knows.  And also, what is a fair fee to be charged for simple estate planning?  I am so tempted to do one of those DIY will and trust things (Legal Zoom or Suze or something) but don't know if that will completely screw me over.

[fikafairy67]

We are adding term life insurance policies right now, through New York life (I think?). DH's uncle is an agent, so we went through him. I also have a tiny policy through work.

Budgeting, we won't have to budget for daycare for #2 until 2018, since my parents are retired and already offered to watch LO until he/she is about a year. Once that happens, we will have to pay for daycare x2 for only another 6-8 months before DS goes to kindergarten.

My cousin is an estate planning attorney, so we did our will through him. My sister gets our kids and control of our "estate". Her husband is a lawyer too, which helps.

[lola]

So I know this thread is old, but we've been working on our budget (hello daycare fees!), and I thought I'd bring it back up to the top. Here's my list of things to do. What am I missing?

Before Birth:
Choose pediatrician
Establish will and designate legal guardian
Adjust beneficiaries on existing policies
Research health insurance and decide which plan we will add baby to (we each have our own through work)
Term life insurance

After Birth:
Get baby's SSN and birth certificates
Update health insurance plan within 30 days
Purchase safe to store documents
Begin college savings plan

Edited for grammar.

[emilie]

lola if you are going to get term life on yourself pre-birth I would do it now, before 3rd tri weight gain and any 3rd tri problems that could come up.

also, question for anyone who knows - should you do your will before or after baby is born? does baby have to exist first before you can set up a trust in his/her name as a beneficiary? same question about adjusting beneficiaries on existing policies and assets.

[legalbeagle]

lola, I'd add don't forget to add baby to dental and vision insurance if you have that separately. Hopefully really unlikely that little baby would have any of those problems, but sometimes that gets overlooked. You'll need a trust in addition to a will since littles can't inherit. Amazing list!

emilie, I'm a lawyer (though not an estate planning one) but I'm honestly not sure since we did ours afterwards. You could probably just have everything ready to go and just execute after baby is born. That wouldn't take very long.

I had my medical exam for supplemental insurance yesterday! Woohoo. Hopefully all went well. One of the things we need to do is some childproofing -- we've moved twice since LO was born but now that we're in our long-term apartment I'd like to get the TV mounted and also other things secured to the walls so I don't need to do it later.

[lola]

emilie, So smart!

legalbeagle, Thank you! I was hoping the lawyer would weigh in.

[Becca]

emilie, the lawyer DH talked to said we couldn't actually file any trust/wills before our babies are born. They are mailing us a list of things we need to decide on though so once the twins are born it will be faster to actually write. It would be worth contacting one to get the process started now though so it is less to think about once baby arrives.

[emilie]

Aug 23, 2016 14:39:40 GMT -5 Becca said:

emilie , the lawyer DH talked to said we couldn't actually file any trust/wills before our babies are born. They are mailing us a list of things we need to decide on though so once the twins are born it will be faster to actually write. It would be worth contacting one to get the process started now though so it is less to think about once baby arrives.

thank you! I figured as much but was not sure.

[lola]

So I know the question was asked earlier in the thread, but is it best to go with a legit lawyer vs. a DIY solution? Obviously, a legit lawyer is preferred, but how bad are the DIY options?

[emilie]

Aug 23, 2016 18:11:42 GMT -5 lola said:

So I know the question was asked earlier in the thread, but is it best to go with a legit lawyer vs. a DIY solution? Obviously, a legit lawyer is preferred, but how bad are the DIY options?

would love for legalbeagle to weigh in.  I am thinking about using Legal Zoom or something.

[WineNChocolate]

We are just using our life insurance through work for right now. The benefits of a Term Life insurance for us both working and what not with all our other assets is not "necessary" if you will for us at this point in life. IF I was to stop working and other things would change we would take it into consideration. You should be able to just look up plans on your own without an advisor. 1,000,000 dollar plans for 30yrs are running around 50-60 dollars a month for 30 year olds. If your younger it may be less, I looked back into this month. Not all term life insurance require a medical exam either.

Financially, We use a financial advisor and everything for that has been set up he is handling all the beneficiary changes, we were able to put down the baby once we received a SSN for DD. However we had the paperwork ready and our advisor was waiting for our number.

Wills, that is something we are looking into now. We have a family friend who is a lawyer we will be using to draft ours. I have had friends use legal zoom if you just want a pretty basic Will, you don't have a lot of intricacies that you need to include. She was happy with it.

Insurance everyone is under my insurance since I work for the government my options are just more encompassing of everything covered. We were able to add DD at 36w with her name and provide a SSN in 60days. I would check with your provider to find out how they do it. Open enrollement is also coming something to think about it looking at the coverage and rates for FTM now that you would be "family" instead of self or Self+1.

OH YES! If you are in need of a financial advisor, he will do estate planning, insurance, brokerage so on and so forth. Please let me know. Our advisor does people in different places and can set up web chats and such. He has done us very well the past couple of years. 

[requiressnacks]

I have a life insurance question - like a lot of you, my company offers life insurance as part of our benefits package. It's pretty reasonably priced and seems legit. Is there a reason to go out and get a term policy if we are happy with the $$ coverage offered through work? Or is it just if you want to have more financial coverage than what is offered?

[WineNChocolate]

requiressnacks, its just a comparison, some life insurance through your company are really good. But just look at what are the benefits and such...are you getting the same return if something would happen that you would if with outside comp. If rates and coverage are comparable I would def not second guess using the company offered.

[legalbeagle]

requiressnacks, the benefit of having a policy outside work is that you still have it if you get fired/switch jobs OR if you need more insurance than your company will provide you. I have 7x my salary through work, which was fine when we only had one kid, but I felt like we needed more if we have two kids and I was to die and my husband needed to pay for childcare, private school, college educations, maybe a bigger apartment if my parents moved up to help take care of the kids, etc.

emilie, can LegalZoom do a trust for you? I haven't tried any of the software so can't really comment on how good it is or not. If you don't do a trust your secondary beneficiaries in the wills should be the guardians for your kid(s), but a trust is cleaner. I'm a risk adverse lawyer so of course I went to another lawyer.

[requiressnacks]

Thanks, legalbeagle. Exactly as I suspected.

[emilie]

Aug 24, 2016 12:57:19 GMT -5 legalbeagle said:

requiressnacks , the benefit of having a policy outside work is that you still have it if you get fired/switch jobs OR if you need more insurance than your company will provide you. I have 7x my salary through work, which was fine when we only had one kid, but I felt like we needed more if we have two kids and I was to die and my husband needed to pay for childcare, private school, college educations, maybe a bigger apartment if my parents moved up to help take care of the kids, etc.

emilie , can LegalZoom do a trust for you? I haven't tried any of the software so can't really comment on how good it is or not. If you don't do a trust your secondary beneficiaries in the wills should be the guardians for your kid(s), but a trust is cleaner. I'm a risk adverse lawyer so of course I went to another lawyer.

requiressnacks what she said.  don't forget that as you get older, life insurance will just get more expensive.  if you chnage jobs and your new company has not-as-good life insurance or no life insurance benefit, you might want to apply for term insurance anyway, and it will cost more the older you get (and if you develop any health issues).  also, term insurance is relatively cheap.  you can cover both you and YH for under $100 a month or a lot less for a 20-30 term for $1M each or less.  totally worth it IMO if something were to happen to one of you.

and damn legalbeagle, 7x? I know lots of employers provide life insurance but not at that level.  mine is like 2x.  another reason to supplement with term.  

re: LegalZoom, yes, it looks like they can do a living revocable trust.  we don't own a home and our assets are pretty run-of-the-mill so I don't want to spend a bazillion dollars on an estate lawyer if I can keep it simple. 

[lola]

Rats, legalbeagle, I figured you'd say that. Another question... does client-attorney privilege exist for something like this? My husband has a relative that does family law and might cut us a deal for a will and trust. My one hesitation is that we'll be naming MY parents legal guardians vs. my husband's parents, and I would hate for his parents to somehow find out. I know that if we were to actually die, they would find out, but I'd hate for them to find out from a family member while we're still alive and have their feelings hurt.

[legalbeagle]

emilie, yeah if they'll do a trust I would try it esp if choice is between no will/trust and will/trust through LegalZoom. I have to pay a little extra for 7x coverage -- employer offers 3x for free.