Although estate planners are constantly encouraging family members to discuss their estate plans with one another, some people simply refuse to do so. A recent article discusses what to do if your parents insist on staying mum about his or her estate plan.
It is first important to realize that, as an adult child of your parents, you have no right to access any of their estate planning or financial information. For example, you cannot call you parent’s insurance company to determine what type of insurance your parents have, or call the bank and determine how much your parents have in savings. In order to access any of this information, you must have authority
There are two ways to gain this authority. First, your parents can designate you as their power of attorney. Many power of attorney documents have a springing provision so they do not take effect until your parent becomes incapacitated.
If a parent become incapacitated without first having executed a power of attorney document, you will have to ask a court to grant you a conservatorship in order to tend to his or her financial accounts. It is often difficult for conservators to pick up the pieces of a parent’s financial life, however, because the people who require conservatorships often did not organize information on their financial documents for their conservator.