Saving your insurance documents
Do you know where to find your insurance? You probably think of course, in my inbox. Okay, but firstly, which inbox. Secondly, as you sure it is in your inbox, or do you need to log in to a website to find a statement and your account number? Unless you are very lucky for at least some of your insurance documents you will find you need to log in to a website.
We spend a lot of money on insurance and, during a cost of living crisis, it would be a shame for it to go unused. If you are not sure where to find it, or need to log in to a website to get an account number, how would anybody else help you with that task? Additionally, when we need our insurance details we are normally in a bit of a flap. Has that expired, do I need to make a claim, should I compare this one to get a cheaper option? Adding the step of trying to find basic information to any of these situations is going to make it harder.
I don’t need to do this
You might think, it’s not that hard, I don’t have that many insurances, so I don’t need to do this. You may have more than you think, for instance -
Life insurance (often automatically attached to your superannuation)
Total and permanent disability insurance, or income protection insurance, which again could be attached to your superannuation, or could be a separate product
Car insurance including third party and the green slip
House and contents insurance if you own, or renters/contents insurance
Private health insurance
Insurance relating to your profession (for instance if you are a nurse, a licensed conveyancer, or an accountant)
Worker’s comp insurance if you are an employee - you won’t know who your boss insures with, can I please suggest you record in your life admin the contact details for HR or the relevant department in case a family member is trying to make a worker’s comp claim on your behalf
Travel insurance (again, what is the point in having it if you cannot find it)
Health insurance for pets
Funeral insurance
I know our house is insured, I am not sure I could tell you who with, and even if I guessed I am not sure where I would find that statement. Again, when you need these documents you are almost always in a rush, or a bit stressed. This isn’t just about finding the documents and saving them somewhere for your family, it is also about making your life easier.
Additionally we have insurance for a reason, right? To use it if something happens. If we cannot find it, or our family cannot find it when we need it then quite frankly, why are you wasting money on it?
This seems like a lot of effort
I suppose this is a lot of effort, but actually, that is kind of the point. Having this information stored in a variety of different places makes it difficult to get it all together. Once you have it all together you won’t have to keep doing this. Firstly, your account number and who you are insured with won’t change, or when they do you update them. I am not proposing that you do this every year. Secondly, you can (if you want) send an email to your life admin account whenever your insurance statement comes in, or whenever the yearly premium is due, to keep it up to date. This is a lot but you will have to do it sometime, so rather than doing it in a piecemeal fashion why not get this #lifeadmin issue sorted so that updating or paying your insurance is less stressful.
While you are there
While you are doing this it would be helpful to start a document that just records the basics. By basics I mean, what is the insurance (house, car, life), who is it with (Allianz, AMP, or ??), what is your account number, how much it is for (so house, $700,000), and how much you pay. This way the information is even more centralised. If you have created a life admin account using something like Google then you could create a Google Sheet in that same account with five columns to record this information.
Maybe one day you might even take a look at these insurances and get some quotes, but for now please don’t do that. This is already alot. For now find it all, email it to your life admin account, and create a really basic list that you also email to your life admin account. Make sure when you are forwarding the documents by email to your life admin account that you quickly type what the document is (for instance car insurance) to make it easier to search for it later.
Letter of Wishes
This is the type of information that you could include in your Letter of Wishes, and an example of how the information that goes into your Letter of Wishes is often helpful for your #lifeadmin.
If you do an Estate Plan with me then we will complete a Letter of Wishes, together, you won’t be given homework that is simply added to your overwhelming pile of life admin. We will discuss it live, while working through the questions and starting to type up answers. This information is too important for me to ignore it, or leave it for you to complete at a later time on your own. So things like this would actually be covered as part of your Estate Plan, along with other issues like the contact details that are important for your family or Attorney or Executor to have if anything happens to you.
Estate Planning is more than Wills
Have you already set up a life admin account? If not, or if you don’t know what that is, you can read about that here. I covered it in my weekly emails, which are free, and which give you one life admin task a week to take care of because good estate planning should also take care of your life admin.
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