Preparing With Love: Helping Aging Parents While Planning for What Comes Next

Today we'll be discussing how to handle things when you have aging parents. Hello and welcome to Money Talks. My name is Ken Wink from Summit Financial Consulting. If you'd like more info about what you hear during our show today, be sure to give us a call, 586-226-2100, or you can visit us online at summitfc.net. While you're at our website, make sure you check out that podcast page. You can check out past shows and also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music. So if you have your parents in your life still, that's usually a great thing because a lot of people don't. But once they start getting up in years, we found that a lot of people, unfortunately, are not prepared and don't necessarily have their affairs in order. Or maybe just sometimes they're not as efficient as they could be. So today we're going to help you delicately put a game plan together to make sure that these are the best years possible and not extra stressful for anyone. But before we jump into this topic, let me introduce my co-host, Tony. Tony, I know this subject hits close to home for you. So I'm sorry for bringing up a tender subject. But I know that you know that our listeners and our viewers definitely, you know, this is important stuff and being prepared is good.

It is. And, you know, if my sharing my experiences or for our listeners and viewers to know that I'm going through this, I think that's important. And we need to talk to each other about it. If you have friends or family that have gone through it. It's always good. And if you're working with a team like you have there at Summit, Ken and his team there, they see this and have helped people go through this. It is tough. And I have been going through it the last few years with my parents. And they both have Parkinson's and my mom's Parkinson's is at a point. Last time I went to see her is the least communicative she's been. She had a really hard time. communicating. And that was tough. That's tough when you get to that point, because before her mind was still sharp, but, you know, it was more physical. So they both have communication issues now. And that's hard for me as a son. And I'm in a situation, I'm an only child. And I really feel for you if you're an only child and you're trying to take care of your parents. Mine are three and a half hours away. I mean, we've looked at moving them closer, but they really didn't. I mean, they both grew up right there. They lived their whole lives in the same area. And that's where my dad's friends are that still come to visit him. So it's been a and my wife and I both work full time. Our house isn't set up for it. So it's been a struggle. And, you know, you know, I struggle with feeling guilty about it. But you know what? My parents put up with me. I mean, Ken, you know, me putting up with this guy for, you know, almost, you know, 19 years. And then into my 20s, still having to bail me out, so to speak. Not literally. I wasn't in jail or anything. But yeah, I was a crazy, hyperactive child. So I owe them. They did a great job, or at least the best they could with me running around. So it's only fair. So I have no problem with it. And I'm glad I'm able to help them. However, you know, for our listeners and viewers out there, Ken, it's I call it the sandwich generation because my kids, three kids in college, aging parents in long term care, you're sandwiched in between. And some people for some people, that's a tough situation.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, thanks for sharing that. And sorry, you're going through it. I would say no need for guilt. I mean, it's obvious you care about your parents deeply and you're doing everything that you can, all things considered. So that's, that's all any of us can do with anything in life, right? Is just try our best. Yeah.

Yeah. But it can be tough. I'm glad you're talking about it today.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, my, my first talking point or tip, I guess, is just to start the conversation early because if you wait until they are in a tough spot, they might not even be able to, you know, communicate everything that's going on. And, you know, on the front end, I want to acknowledge that talking about aging and death is uncomfortable. You know, it, it just stinks, but it's something that we, we have to do, you know, and, and, When you're trying to have these conversations, you want to emphasize that this is about being prepared and about love and it's not about money or pessimism. Like we just, you know, we just don't want it to be a disaster, mom and dad. So, right.

Yeah, it is. And I think it is uncomfortable. People don't like talking about their own mortality or their parents and their parents. If they're like mine, like my dad and his dad, they didn't discuss anything personal ever. And this is a topic that people typically avoid, but one you shouldn't. because chances are your parents and, you know, two out of every three people who make it to 65 are at some point going to be or need long-term care, whether that's in home or a long-term care facility. So you've got to discuss these things ahead of time, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you bring up a good point about, like, how comfortable are we talking about this stuff? You know, some people, they can sort of talk about openly with their parents about it. So you need to read the room when you're having this conversation and trying to have these conversations. But, you know, for me, you know, my dad's been a financial advisor for almost 39 years. So for him, I would just be like, hey, when was the last time you had an attorney look over your stuff and maybe a CPA look it over just to make sure we don't give money to the government instead of your kids and grandkids? You know, I could be that bold with him, but everybody.

And he would say to you, don't tell me my business, boy. Yeah, that's right. Do not tell me my business.

But no, I'm kidding. I'm trying to bring this up and we're not having a vodka on the rocks.

Right. Yeah. Timing is everything. Timing is everything. But don't avoid the conversation like so many people do. And I wish... I wish my grandfather would have communicated more openly with my dad and his three siblings before he passed. It would have helped so much. And I saw that. So I tried to rectify that with my parents. We met with an estate planning attorney and got all the powers of You know, we got all that taken care of while they were still able to, you know, while they were still in fair health. My dad was still in good health and my mom had Parkinson's and was in assisted living at the time, but she was definitely healthy. Doing well and very communicative so I could still get around with some help. So that was important. And I'm so glad we got that taken care of. I mean, they had had a couple of older wills from like when I was a kid. Right. No go. That's that's no good. That doesn't work. And we were able to set up a trust, which really helps, too.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One last thing, like a communication tip. So a lot of baby boomers that I run into, especially men, especially, especially men, baby boomers, if you tell them what to do, sometimes they'll push in the opposite direction. But if you drop little breadcrumbs and they feel like they came up with the idea on their own, then they will run with it and actually have pride in it that they got it done.

Are you talking to the wives and the women out there? Hey, drop little breadcrumbs for the men in your life.

Whether it's the kids or the wives dealing with these baby boomers. Oh, yeah. Not all the time, but a decent amount of them. They like an idea much more if it was their idea. So if you just threw a little breadcrumbs. When was the last time you, you met with an attorney and everything looked over, like, you know, are there ways to save money on taxes, you know, and, and just see where that got you. They might take that initiative and run with it. So anyways, there's my, there's my PR. I'll take off my, uh,

My counselor kind of threw men under the bus a little bit there. But you're right. We know we're that way.

So, yeah. Well, so next next most important thing is just what you were mentioning. Like, we got to make sure that all these legal documents are in order. And, you know, I'm not an attorney. I recommend that everyone meet with an attorney to go over these documents and figure out what's appropriate for your specific situation. But the big ones are just power of attorney, which will say who makes financial decisions if you're incapacitated. Patient advocate or healthcare power of attorney just saying who's going to be making medical decisions for you if you're incapacitated. And then everyone needs a will. A lot of people don't realize even if you have a trust, you still need a will because regular will then it becomes a pour over will. But yeah, will or a trust depending upon the size of your estate and whether you have specific directives. And then just make sure that those documents are up to date. Like you said, sometimes people have wills that are 40, 50 years old and that doesn't cut it. There's been changes, you know, just health care power of attorney alone because of changes to HIPAA laws. Those things we normally recommend having an attorney check them out and just make sure everything's good every five, 10 years at the most. You know, you don't want to have these documents prepared and then they don't even work.

Right. And that's why they need to be updated. Oh, we did a will. We did that 20 years ago. Yeah, well, life happens. There are births, deaths, marriages, divorce, you know, life changes. And you have to update things like beneficiaries, like your will. And you kind of breeze by it. But I think it's an important point. I'll reiterate what you said, Ken, and that's health care directives. Um, you need that. You got, you gotta have that and you gotta have powers of attorney set up. So,

Yep. Absolutely. And another thing is just making sure that all the accounts are accounted for. So a lot of people miss their bank accounts. You've got to go into the bank and either have it owned by the trust or have what we call transfer on death or payable on death. Most oftentimes it's TOD transfer on death, but you've got to have every account accounted for. So look at bank accounts, look at retirement accounts, look at life insurance policies. I, I, I just do not like it when I see somebody passes away and the life insurance policy from work, it's still had an ex spouse listed on there as the beneficiary.

Like they never went to work and updated the beneficiary designation after getting, and that's going to take precedent over even a will that, I mean, it's going to end up going to the ex wife because that's when all the way to the Supreme Court, and the beneficiary designation is is that's set in stone that unless you change it before you pass, it's going to whoever is listed. Absolutely. And that's a mistake I know you've seen a lot. And the bank account thing, my wife and I did not realize that I didn't even realize you could have a beneficiary for your bank accounts. And I can correct me if I'm wrong, but most people, and I bet a lot of our listeners and viewers do not have a transfer on death or a beneficiary set up for their bank accounts.

I would agree with that a hundred percent, Tony. Yeah. I would say the majority of people do not have that set up.

It's just not a standard form. Right. And a lot of banks, you have to physically go into the bank, which nowadays is unheard of. But you just go into the bank, ask for the form, fill it out and sign it and you're done. It's not that hard. You just have to take time to go in and do it. And it's worth it because what if something were to happen to you and your spouse? And, you know, your kids, then they have it's a nightmare. I remember my grandfather died and didn't have beneficiary designations on bank accounts. And it was a big mess. So, yeah.

And that's that's the whole reason for doing this, really. I mean, for a lot of people anyways, it's to avoid probate. So probate in Michigan, it normally takes between three months and 13 months. And you normally have to work with an attorney and the attorney is normally going to charge $200 to $500 per hour to help handhold this thing through the court system. Probate, the purpose of probate is to just basically tell a who these accounts go to. So if you have any accounts that didn't have a beneficiary designation on them and didn't automatically transfer to someone, then they go to probate. And then that's what probate court is there for is to say, okay, we don't know who this asset is supposed to go to because they forgot to put beneficiary designations on it. So let's get this figured out. Yeah. And that's where a will can be submitted to the probate court and it'll eventually get.

But there are steps you can do to avoid probate. So these accounts go directly. I mean, I've seen situations where the bank account was where the money, most of the money was at or in a CD at the bank. And they needed that money for the funeral or to help with costs after your parent passed. And they had to wait for access for the courts because they couldn't access it. And so you don't want to leave your family in a tough situation like that. I mean, that's not fair to them. And it's so easy to take care of ahead of time.

Yeah. A two minute trip to the bank. Right. Yeah. Avoided that.

And it's worth it's worth setting up trust to avoid probate. You're like, well, that's cost money. You know, I don't want to spend that money. You'll spend more than that if you don't have a trust set up and it goes to probate.

That's that's usually the case because the attorneys and the time and the court fees, the court fee, it's called an inventory fee. So the larger the estate, the more money that's in there, the more the inventory fee is. So, yeah, they get you coming and going. It is definitely most cost effective to get this figured out ahead of time. Yeah. Create a will or a trust. Create power of attorney, patient advocate. Yeah. Create transfer on death designations, a pour over will, we'll make sure that nothing goes through probate. So again, we're not here to provide legal advice, but highly recommend you meet with a qualified attorney. We do have a wonderful attorney team that we work with here at Summit Financial. We'd love to get you connected. So if anyone is thinking about getting these documents reviewed or created, give us a call at 586-226-2100.

All right. So what's next on the list when it comes to helping our aging parents? What do we need to know?

Just get everything organized. You know, have them write down somewhere where everything's at. We've dealt with kids. You know, these are adult kids, sometimes even in their 60s. And they're having to just look over their parents' mailbox like a hawk because some investments only send statements once a year. So you can be sitting there waiting, waiting, like, where is this money? I swear they had another account out there, but I don't know what the name of the company was, which is in there. You know, you got to create a centralized list of where everything's at. bank accounts, CDs, money markets. Sometimes older people will have CDs at eight different banks in town. That's a disaster for a kid to try and figure out. Yes. Insurance policies, any debts, any recurring bills. You know, we don't need to pay for mom and dad's Netflix anymore if they're gone. Identify who has access to all this information, where it's stored, and then also highly encourage people to have a physical copy of that, but also a digital copy because What happens if the house floods or burns or right? Like, so we've got to have a backup plan just in case.

Yeah, I think that's great. Create a centralized list of all your accounts, debts, where things are at, maybe even passwords and store it digitally. I know you have like a digital place where your clients can store stuff digitally. And I think that's important to have that. There's online vaults that are encrypted. There's things like that, right?

Yeah, we've got a digital vault that all of our clients get access to. Unlimited digital storage for no cost.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I know you offered that and I've seen it. I've utilized it. My wife and I utilize it. Fantastic. You have to do that. You can even store pictures or a video in case of my passing for the kids to watch. I think that's so important to do and really helpful.

Well, another thing is homeowners insurance. Like you can take a video of your whole house and say, look, I actually owned this big screen TV so that if there's a flood or maybe more appropriately a fire, you know, the TV's burnt up. Now you've got proof that you had that stuff so you can get all the money out of the contents of the house.

Right. And if you have pictures of stuff like, look, I can prove that I own this jacket. If something should, if the house should burn, I can show the insurance company, look, This isn't just some cheap Amazon $39 jacket. Oh, wait, it is. Okay. No, that's a priceless. But look at us there. I mean, my goodness, we're at a big financial conference. Anyway, had to show that one. Had to work that into the show today.

That was a moment of pure joy right after that. getting awards. So yeah. Yeah, you got a big award there, that was great. Um, in fact you got a few, you gotta, you gotta cut at least. How many, how many awards did your firm win at that big financial conference? We, we got to go on stage twice. Twice, two times, that's huge. Yeah, just telling my wife last night, like, uh, it's so exciting going to these conferences and going across the stage, like it's not, uh, you know, some huge cash prize, but it is a pat on the back that feels good.

I mean, it's 500 of the top advisors and financial advisory firms from across the United States. And you're honored as one of the top ones. I mean, that's, yeah, that's that you guys work hard over there. I mean, even Jim, Your brother works hard, doesn't he? He does, absolutely. Once in a while. Okay, so what's next? I think healthcare is a big one in long-term care. That's probably the elephant in the room when it comes to taking care of aging. For me, anyway, that's the biggest.

It is, yeah. Long-term care costs are crazy. In Michigan, it can be $10,000 a month. So you could go through savings pretty quickly if a parent or a different loved one goes into long-term care. So just having a little discussion. Do you wanna stay at home? Do you wanna go into an assisted living apartment where they've got that button that you can press if you get into trouble or if you fall? What are your wishes for the end of your life? Do you want to be buried in downtown Detroit? Do you want to be farther north? Do you want to be cremated? Where do you want your ashes to be? Just reviewing all of their wishes, reviewing their insurance, make sure that they've got proper insurance coverage. Do they have long-term care insurance or are they planning to just pay for it out of pocket? We can get people quotes on that. Another thing is medications and important doctors. So whenever someone becomes a client of ours, we give them a binder and it's got a page to fill in because in our area, there are these major medical system. So there's Henry Ford hospitals and there's, uh, So there's like three or four of them. They don't talk to each other. Nobody at Henry Ford knows what they're prescribing at Corwell because of HIPAA, because of privacy rules. So if you don't have a list to connect the dots of who these doctors are, what the medications are, what they're being, if you're having a heart attack, wouldn't it be nice to know that we could call your cardiologist and figure out what your history is? It could be a life-saving conversation. So really, really important to have that stuff written down, especially if they've got any pre-existing conditions.

True. And I want to add to that, Ken, something I just recently went through. the list of doctors that your parents are using, their names and the locations and the names of the clinics and hospitals, and the list of all the prescriptions they are on and medications they use. Where that really comes in handy, you gave a great illustration, obviously, in urgent health situations. However, also... At some point, they're not going to be able to sign up for Medicare. And at one point, they could be part of an Advantage plan. And that company could just say they could send out a letter to your parents and you're getting it because you have to take care of things for them. That says we're no longer offering a plan or in this business like I got this past year, three months before the deadline for for the annual enrollment period. I get my parents get a letter saying, oh, you care in Minnesota isn't going to cover that offer advantage plans for seniors anymore. So I had to sign them up for a new plan. I had to look at Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield, all the different whatever options there were. There were only two in their area at that point because you care was no longer there. But I needed I called up and I needed I didn't realize this. You have to have their Medicare number. not only their social security number, but their Medicare number, which is on their Medicare card. And if you don't have that, I'll tell you, it's not easy to get that. And you have to have a list of all their prescriptions, all their doctors, where they go to make sure they're in network. So to make sure they can get the coverage they need. So you have to have all that stuff and it needs to be accessible. And as a parent, you need to do it for your kids. As adult children, you need to make sure you have that for your aging parents.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we do a decent amount of health insurance here through Summit Health Services.

Yeah, you have Medicare specialists that help people with these things. And that's the thing. I was trying to do it on my own because I was in Minnesota. I wish I had been where you're at and I could have just went in and your specialist would have punched in the zip code and been able to help me. And it would have taken a big burden off. But it is important that they're going to need that information. Somebody is going to need that information eventually.

Yeah. I mean, just think about how crazy the names of prescription drugs are.

You know, it's like, oh, I had to list them. Oh, trust me. Yeah. Ken, I had. Yeah. I mean, it's just like how many consonants are in this word? It's like, what language is this? I was I was really it's tough.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And then the, the amount of the medication too, and how often they take it, all that stuff.

Oh, they have, yes, they have to know that. Is it the five milligram? Is it the 25 milligram? Is it the once a day or you have to know all of that? Absolutely.

Yeah. So it's a lot guys. So make sure you're having these conversations with their aging parents and getting it all situated. A couple, a couple things here before we wrap up, uh, Just know when to ask for help, you know, whether it's an estate planning attorney or a financial advisor or a tax professional to look at the different taxes and how them passing away might change things. You can meet with an elder care specialist. You know, just you don't have to do this alone. And then the last thing is just make sure you're updating this stuff. You can make a huge effort right now after listening to this show or watching the show and you get all this stuff organized. They could be on completely different prescription medications in one year, three years, five years. You got to follow up on this stuff. Just make sure all the ducks are in a row. Again, possibly updating patient advocate in the future because of changes to HIPAA laws. Any major life events occur, somebody passes away, somebody's born, somebody's adopted. All of these things could require a change to the document. So let's keep the lines of communication open. And, you know, sometimes their wishes change, too. You know, sometimes somebody gets into the good graces or somebody gets into trouble and things change. So we just got to make sure that we're on top of all this stuff and keep it updated.

Yeah, I think that's great. A great show, a really important, serious topic, but a lot of great information today, Ken. How can our listeners out there, I mean, you have that healthcare team, you have people there that can help with a lot of this, and you work alongside estate planning attorneys. How can our listeners, if they have questions or need help with this, get a hold of you?

Visit our website, summitfc.net. We've got a different section on our website for all the different services that we offer. We think that that's our biggest competitive advantage is that we've got financial planners in retirement, but then we also have a tax team through Summit Tax Services powered by Humor Clining Company. We've got Summit Health Services doing all of the healthcare needs and Medicare planning. We've got auto and homeowners insurance through Summit Insurance Services. And then we also work with a great estate planning team. So a lot of people will have like a financial advisor over here and a health insurance person over here and a tax person over here and insurance and estate. You know, none of those professionals talk to each other. So at the end of the day, you're sort of trying to game plan and be the quarterback of the whole thing. where with Summit Financial, we've got all of these teams working together and communicating for you to come up with a comprehensive plan that works together. So give us a call at 586-226-2100. We'd love to help you protect your savings and feel confident about the road ahead.

All right. Thanks, Ken. Listeners and viewers, thanks for tuning in. That does it for today's episode of Money Talks with Summit Financial Consulting, LLC, and our host, Ken Wink. Thank you for joining us for Money Talks. Don't head into retirement without a strategy that addresses both income and taxes. For more information, please contact Ken Wink at Summit Financial, working with people you trust. Call 586-226-2100 or visit SummitFC.net. Join us again soon for another episode of Money Talks.