Following is a pre-planning checklist from Home Instead Senior Care and author Jo Myers that can help your senior loved one ensure their affairs are in order:
- Designate an enduring power of attorney to ensure that proper information can be accessed in the event of your illness or death. Make sure an enduring power of attorney for health care is in place so that your wishes are carried out if you are unable to do so.
- Prepare a contact list of individuals who should be notified in a medical emergency or death.
- Make sure your legal representative (LPR or executor) has a list of important account information or telephone numbers for retirement plans, insurance policies, investments, bank accounts, safe-deposit boxes, properties, funeral directors and accountant firms. Remind your legal personal representative that if you’re receiving benefits such as those from the Department of Social Welfare, they should be contacted as well.
- Make arrangements for telephone and utilities services, and newspaper and magazine deliveries, to be cancelled.
- Make arrangements for pets to find a new home.
- Write an obituary or jot down information you would like included in an obituary.
- Decide where obituary and memorial information should appear.
- Specify the type of service you would like including the burial you prefer and make those arrangements.
- Decide the type of service including speakers and music that you would like.
- Decide what organisations or church will benefit from donations in your name.