'Parents do die' blog discussion
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My dad died when I was 3.
My mum was a widow, left to look after me and my 9 year old sister. She had moved 2 hours drive away from her home town for dad's health, so no family back up for her at all.
Dad "didn't believe" in life insurance.
Guess who turned into latchkey kids at an early age as mum had to work?
And guess whose priority was getting life assurance and a will made when DS1 came along? Only costs £7 a month for me and OH. So worth it.
My parents have just re-done thier wills and set up some sort of trust fund so that when the first goes, the money goes into a fund to make use of the Nil rate IH allowance. However, she has just found out that TPTB are challanging a specific case based on the fact that Mrs JustDiedFirst hadn't actually/personally contributed to the mortgage and the whole thing was looking like it was going to come unstuck. Apparently, divorce law now recognises the 'unpaid' contribution that women make to the household income but that inheritence law hasn't caught up yet - makes me mad when I think of all the sacrifices my mum made to stay at home with us and that I now make to stay at home for my children.
My sister and I lost our mother at 14 and 16. Fortunately, it prompted my father to get his head out of the bottle, or we'd have been in an even worse situation than we were.
It's easy to avoid having these insurances and easy to rationalise that you don't want to pay money each month (especially if things are tight), but it's so important to do.
― Dylan Moran
Because we weren't married, I am entitled to nothing. Any funds from his estate are split between the children. If we had no children his parents would inherit. If his parents didn't survive him, his sister would inherit although they didn't get along and hadn't spoken in several years! If we had been married I would have been eligible for a bereavement benefit of up to £2000 towards the funeral and a widowed parents benefit weekly for a year to help support the children. Being unmarried I don't qualify for any bereavement benefits.
Although I'm not liable for any of his debts (credit cards etc), they do have to be paid from the estate if funds allow. Payment protection insurance seemed a waste of money at the time, but apparently would have ensured the debts were written off.
Being unmarried presents a lot of difficulties at a time that is so hard enough to deal with anyway. I was only allowed to register his death because I was with him when he died. There are no boxes on the forms for co-habiting/living together. Same on the forms with the funeral director. Because I am the Personal Representative dealing with his "estate" they were able to tick a box, otherwise I may not have been able to make the funeral arrangements either.
I used to work in the financial services and one of the worse cases I saw was when one parent had died and left everything to their OH who later remaried. Shortly after they married the OH was in a fatal accident. The children went to live their grandparents and the new husband recieved all his wifes assets, including the funds of her first husbands insurance, the house that was their family home etc. So, please also think about making a will stipulating what should happen to the money in the event of divorce or death of the beneficiary.
So sorry Sebelou, it's so wrong when you live together and have children.