My Life & Wishes Customer Review & Tip: Share Your Account

A My Life & Wishes customer sent us a personal story (below) about using My Life & Wishes not only for herself, but also for her parents. This story is a good reminder of how sharing a My Life & Wishes account with family and other designated users is a great way to stay organized and keep track of important information.

As a My Life & Wishes user, I felt good about completing my plan so my family will know where all my accounts are, what is current, how to login to my on-line accounts and what I want done with them when I am no longer here. However, it recently dawned on me that I am the major caretaker of my parent’s financial affairs. What about their information?

My parents are in their 80’s, still live in their home, and with only us 2 kids, my sister and I split the responsibilities of taking care of them. They no longer drive, so my sister does all the transporting to doctor appointments, grocery shopping etc., while I handle my parents bill paying and financial affairs. They’ve done a good job as far as planning for things such as completing their healthcare directives, DNR orders and HIPPA authorization forms. However, their primary care physicians house these forms. They have so many different doctors at this age, they all do not have this information on file (nor do emergency responders or my sister.) It certainly does not make sense to carry all this paperwork around with you for when you might need it. So where do we keep it? Currently, I have copies of their paperwork and directives on my computer at work. I keep all their bills, login information and so on in files at my home.

I travel a lot with my job, so what are the odds that I will be home or at my office and available in the event of an emergency when this information is needed? What if something happens and my sister needs access to this information? Thinking this through, I realized I needed to get a My Life & Wishes account set up for them as well! I’ve uploaded all of their healthcare directives and instructions on what they want to have happen in the event of an emergency. Not only is this important information now immediately accessible to my sister (as I appointed her as a Designated Viewer on the account), it also provides her all the necessary information to handle their financial affairs in the event something happens to me.

I have also found that instead of carrying all their files to work with me when I pay their bills, or work on their accounts, I just pull up their My Life & Wishes account and their login information, links and passwords are at my fingertips! So much easier! Thank you so much My Life & Wishes!

Many people are involved in managing their parent’s affairs in some way. However, not everyone knows a parent’s wishes or how to ask. Getting started can be difficult, but we have some ideas on how to discuss end-of-life plans with your loved ones.