One week after he died, my 89 year old mother in law, whom I am now the sole care-giver for nearly died and I had to spend several months nursing her back to health. She just recovered from that and had a heart attack (I’m sure due to all the stress) and fell and broke all the fingers on her hand, so I’ve been back to being a caregiver for the past month again. She does not have the money for assisted living. I am a flight attendant who is based 2500 miles away from home, so this is very challenging. I have also been on a reduced schedule and earning less than half of my income during the past year. My job was strictly used for health insurance, flight benefits and to pay my own bills, not support several households. My husband was self-employed and I found out shortly after he died that his manager had been embezzling from him. The man has multiple judgements against him and is now homeless, so there’s no collecting anything. The week after he died I was receiving NSF notices from his bank account, so not only was I left with no money, I was now deeply in debt. My home is in foreclosure and I will be losing pretty much everything that we accumulated in our 24 years together. I have yet to read an article that advises people without even enough money for an attorney on what to do. There weren’t even the funds for a funeral. Fortunately I donated his body to research so I didn’t have to pay for cremation. Who has the time or energy to grieve when you are just fighting to survive and care for another person. All of my friends are many miles away (I’m in HI) on the mainland, so I’ve pretty much been dealing with all of this on my own, with the exception of phone calls. I’m not an attorney, but I’ve had to be one because I can’t afford to hire anyone. Up until my husband died, we had a pretty good life–it’s now been shattered. I can’t totally move on because I am taking care of my mother-in-law, who has been severely depressed over my husbands death and her recent health problems. If you’ve lost your spouse and are left with any money at all, consider yourself fortunate, what I wouldn’t give to have the luxury of just grieving without all of the additional stress of no money. I haven’t even started that process yet. I hope I can get over the anger and bitterness I now feel. I used to be a happy, optimistic person. Maybe I’ll write a book for people who are left with less than nothing after the loss of a loved one–not everyone needs/wants to hear about how to invest all the money you collect, which is what most articles and books seem to focus on. Sorry to be rambling on, but I guess the moral of my story is to make sure that you (or your husband in my case) are never late with the life insurance payment. The consequences can be devastating for your family.

It is a tragedy like none other, but hopefully everyone here will take stock and realize that it can happen and to get their financial houses in order so that no one is left empty hearted AND empty handed.

I now use the phrase “feel the pain/fear, but do it anyway”. Had I understood that then, I who knows where I would be now.

Thanks for sharing.

Every stage needs to plan for the worst and hope for the best.

Something that has reassured me is this: Rather than just following a rule on online calculator, my husband and I have actually sat down with each other and described what we’d like to achieve with our insurance. Examples: reduce the balance on the mortgage; pay for full-time in-home childcare until the kids are school-aged; partially fund college funds. Then, we researched how much each of these goals would cost AND we re-did these calculations and goals at 5-year increments so that we would have a complete picture of our needs over time (which would tell us if the kind of policy we were looking at was appropriate or not).

This also has given me a basic plan of what to do with insurance proceeds at any given time.

My husband is also in the military (@Maggie #55) and I frequently think about these issues, too.

@ Lois, Daisy, Leslie, Paige, and Mike – For you and those you care about the nature of change in the next few years will be relentless and I wish all of you endurance and a daily dose of genuine laughter. Take care.

@ Lois, Daisy, Leslie, Paige, Matthew, and Mike

@ Money Smarts and Keeper, Yep, Keeper has it right, I had the car about 8 months total, was upside down on it, and not at all interested in learning how to sell a car on my own (had always traded in before).

@ Kevin #53 – More detail was that I contacted Honda (who was our financier) before I missed a payment. The loan was in my husband’s name and not mine, it may have been a courtesy on their part to throw the “voulntary” in front of the repo but that is how they always refered to it. Death certificates can open strange doors.

Kudos to you for being able to handle such a devastating situation with grace.

@All Viewers:
Creating a Will and having a life insurance are often neglected items when one is starting young, but the real life tragedy should remind us all that these are unpleasant necessities that need to be attended.

AFAIK, there’s no such thing as a “voluntary repo.” A repo is a repo. Just because you’re friendly about it doesn’t do any less damage to your credit score. Whether you called them, or they tracked you down, it all looks the same on paper, in the bank’s eyes.

The point, of course, was Heather acted remarkably rationally in recognizing that the car could no longer be a part of her life, and limited the financial damage that was done. Kudos to her for acting so wisely. It sucks that she had to mature so fast, but it’s clearly made her a stronger person.

Be prepared to pay twice as much for your husband’s insurance as for your own. For the rest of his life, every time he applies for new life insurance, he’s going to get rejected. Every life insurance form includes the question, “Have you ever been refused life insurance, for any reason?” He has to answer “yes,” which will result in his application being red-flagged and automatically rejected, until he can prove it’s just a harmless heart murmur, and even then, his rates will be higher than other men his age. It sucks. I went through it myself.

It’s really important for any couple who owes a mortgage on a house to carry enough insurance on each party to cover the loan. As blithe as my ex- was about debt, he did at least carry enough insurance that I wouldn’t have been forced to move out of the house if he died.

Now…if he’d been disabled and couldn’t work, that would’ve been another matter. It’s not necessary for one partner to die for a couple to be thrown into desperate financial straits. Disability insurance as well as life insurance is crucial for any couple who owes on a house and cars.

I would advise people not to wait until they have kids to purchase life insurance. The time to buy a 20 year term insurance policy is when you are healthy! No one expects to be diagnosed with something such as hypertension or cancer, no one expects to die young. Purchasing life insurance while you are young & healthy greatly reduces cost. These days, just high cholesterol or family history of cancer can effect your insurability or rates.

I know, because I battled cancer at 42. If I were applying for life insurance now, I wouldn’t quality or it would extremely expensive. I got a 20 year term policy at 32, and it’s good for another 4 years, then the rate slowly rises annually. I also have life insurance through work. My spouse won’t be able to completely eliminate all debt, but he’ll be able to refinance and have a very small mortgage.

He also has good life insurance, renewed a 20 year term policy at age 47. It assuages my anxiety to know that if something happens to him, I could live debt free and focus on recovering emotionally instead of stressing about money.

Get life insurance while you are young and healthy, even if you aren’t married yet, even if you don’t have kids. It’s relatively inexpensive if you purchase it when you’re youn g & healthy, and it’s worth it.

I am so thankful I had already gotten my life insurance before my kids were born (I actually found out I was pregnant during the whole application process). I ended up with gestational diabetes (twin pregnancy) and was later denied further coverage. I tried to buy some of the additional life insurance offered through my employer, but was denied based on the gestational diabetes. I was very upset especially since I am fine now, but I am considered a greater risk going forward. Fortunately, I have my existing policy.

I am by no means an expert, and there may be many other options out there. I have not done the research. I just wanted women to know that pregnancy can drastically change your medical condition/ability to get coverage.

As a ton have people already have commented, thanks for showing me that you can manage even if the worst happens. Your stength and resilience is inspiring.

I wish you the very best of luck as you continue to move forward and establish your financial independence.

It’s enough to cover our debts as they are now, and a funeral, but not enough to replace income for long. As the debts get paid down, it will give us more flexibility. Our lifestyle is sustainable on one of our incomes if the debts are gone.

So, in this rather limited case, I’d say a voluntary repo may have been a pretty shrewd decision.

Sam wrote, “i’d start off by saying that whenever you have responsibilities, financial or otherwise, you need to make a plan for those things taken care of…”

I agree.

While I am single and childless I still have parents and a mortgage. Even though my parents can be sensible about financial matters I’ve been told that the death of a child is one of the worst things to go through. So, I don’t want them to have to prepare my condo for sale so soon after my death. Plus, they are nearing retirement age. While they could handle a funeral and burial, adding a second property to their costs would be a bit much for their retirement income. That’s why I opted to take the life insurance offered by my employer (1 year’s worth of salary). This way, if I did die at least my parents would have some time to grieve before having to deal with selling my home.

You mentioned ‘voluntary repo’, I’m curious as to why you did that? Could you not have just sold the car?

Mike

I too am a young widow. My husband died a few months ago. I am 29. If it weren’t for the forethought of his employer to provide everyone with life insurance, I would be in a really difficult place. I also had to get my financial house in order in a hurry. No matter how many eyebrows I raised, I did what I had to do to stay solvent. I know you aren’t “supposed” to make big decisions the first year, but sometimes you are forced to. I think you’ve done all the right things here and put your “new” life on course in a good direction. Kudos to you for sharing something so difficult. Take Care.

What a great show of character that you were doing things that were therapeutic and productive at the same time. My husband and I both had dads that died in their 50′s, so we have the life insurances, etc.

It’s so inspiring hearing about how strong people can really be once they are put into a tough situation. Gives us all hope.

Thank you for sharing your story. I just turned 27 in July. My husband was killed in a work-related accident nine days after his 27th birthday in January 2010. I have done pretty well financially, and your story has given me some more things to think about. It is comforting to know that there are others in the world that have gone through what I am going through.