Filling Out Your “With Love,” Form
Every year my annual term life insurance premium charge hits my credit card, I think, “oh yeah, I forgot I had that policy”. Considering I’m the person who set it up, and I still forget about it, how much do you think my wife knows about it?*
It’s not uncommon for one person to have all of the knowledge on insurance, investments, car titles, loans, etc. It’s also not uncommon for neither person in a relationship to know how they can access all of that information if they needed to in a pinch. That’s where the “With Love,” Form comes into play.
Use the With Love, form to centralize all of your important account information. You should include all of the important accounts that your partner would need access to in case something happened to you. If you don’t have a significant other, you should still fill this out and let someone important in your life know what to do with it.
How to complete your With Love, form:
- Print off the attached template, or download the form to update on your computer. Download here: With Love, Form_Template
- List and gather all of your relevant financial accounts, including websites, contacts and phone numbers
- Add all of the information in the form, including a description of the account’s current use and intended use
- Print off the form and review it with your trusted partner/family member
- Store it in a safe place
The scariest part of putting this together is your data becomes very vulnerable if someone else got a hold of it. You can always exclude passwords on this form, but just know that will make it somewhat more difficult to access if you’re not around.
You’ll also need to decide if you want to store it on your computer, or only print it out and then delete the file. If your computer is encrypted and you’re one of those computer whizzes, it’s probably okay to keep on your computer. However, if you’re not really sure what you’re doing, it might be better just to fill it out by hand or print it off and delete the file.
The most important thing is just to complete the exercise. It will help you organize all of your important accounts in one place, facilitate a meaningful conversation with your partner or significant other, and ensure they know what to do in case you’re no longer able to manage this information.
*On a separate note, if you partner is way more interested in your life insurance policy information than you, you might have bigger problems to deal with!
