AD| When you get to your middle ages, you’ll undoubtedly start thinking about the future. For example, you’ll probably be thinking about starting a family with someone, and you may also think about what might happen when you’re not around anymore.
As you can appreciate, it makes sense to prepare for specific outcomes in your life, so if they happen, the result won’t be catastrophic or challenging to deal with for your nearest and dearest.
With that in mind, take a look at these vital life tasks you might not have gotten around to doing yet, or perhaps didn’t even know you should do:
1. Take Out A Life Insurance Policy
The first thing you need to do, if you haven’t already done so, the first thing you need to do is to take out a life insurance policy. It’s often a requirement from mortgage companies when you buy a house, but you should do it irrespective of that fact.
Life insurance is something that makes sense if you’ve got a family in tow, or perhaps you’re living with a spouse or long-term partner.
2. Draw Up A Will
Another essential life task you should carry out is to draw up a will. When you die, you’ll leave behind all kinds of valuable items such as assets and money, and those items form part of your estate.
You’ll need to appoint an executor for your will – someone that oversees what happens to your estate, according to your wishes. This legal resource will tell you all you need to know about executors.
3. Organise A Pre-Paid Funeral Plan
When you die, something needs to happen to your body, and this involves having a funeral and getting buried or cremated for most people. One of the challenges of funerals isn’t so much organising them but is more to do with affordability.
Funerals cost a lot of money, even if you opted for a cheap cremation funeral service. One way to make paying for your funeral more affordable is by paying for a pre-paid funeral plan.
Many providers won’t increase the price of your funeral if costs rise, so you can “lock in” a lower price.
4. Take Out Medical Insurance
You’ve discovered how to prepare for things when you die, but what about when you’re still living? As you can appreciate, you’ll likely need some medical care at some stage of your life, and that’s why it can make sense to take out medical insurance.
Medical insurance policies can cover the cost of private medical treatments and surgeries, and they can pay for rehabilitation and other after-care.
5. Set Up A Trust Fund For Your Kids
Last but not least, it’s worth setting up a trust fund if you’ve got children and want to safeguard their financial security. A trust fund is a type of savings product that will mature (pay out) when one or more children reach a specific age.
There used to be child trust funds in the UK that you could get. However, since 2011, they’ve been superseded by Junior ISAs (individual savings accounts).