Life insurance and wills

Jennifer - posted on 06/25/2009

thank you all for your opinions, i guess i will just have to figure out how to talk to my husband

Jaime - posted on 06/25/2009

Di- you have made some excellent points regarding your sd's and your will. I never really thought of it that way. Yes my SS will have his BM, and if something is to happen to me and my husband our girls have no parent. I am definately going to talk to my hubby and see what he thinks, he thought I was crazy the first time around when we wrote our wills after our youngest was born. We are always having to revise our finacal section of our wills due to the fact of owning our own businesses.

Jamie - posted on 06/25/2009

We have them through the military, and as far as I know, my step-son get $25,000, in the event that me and DH pass, our 2 kids at home get the rest. I mean, SS will still have a living parent where as our 2 at home wont. Also, SS money if he is under 18 does not go to him directly, it is put in a trust until he graduates high school and DHs parents are the executor of the trust, not BM.

Di - posted on 06/25/2009

Hi Jennifer. I have a will, my husband hasn't got one yet. He has been advised to make one, he is 'too busy' or so he says. There isn't anything I can do about it. When we got married, I almost owned my own unit as we call them here. He had half paid off his house. We jointly, although it was my refinancing that bought it, our marital home. My theory in regards to this, is that his estate should eventually be divided by four equally, for the four of his kids, and my estate should be divided only twice for our two bio kids. I know this leaves my sd's out but as far as I am concerned, its not up to me to build their future, its up to their parents. The shortfall should come from their bm and it doesn't matter that she will leave them nothing. That isn't down to me, thats down to her lack of financial skills. As to life insurance, my own will pay off the mortgage for my unit and for our marital home. My husband will eventually (like the will) take out two. One that provides for me and our boys and the second that provides for his girls. His house will be bequeathed to his daughters and his half of our marital home will be bequeathed to our sons. That way the two sets of kids will be independent of each other in the finance stakes. My greatest fear is that if the girls are given a share in our home and the boys in their home, then the bm will control it and this home has never had anything to do with her and she has no claim on it. In your situation your life insurance should go be divided equally between your legal children, and your husbands should be divided equally between his. Once you adopt then those children will be his legal kids too. He has to provide equally to all the kids not you. Thats solely my opinion and its what will happen in my case. Hopefully, anyway. Until hubby makes a will, the government here will step in and take the lion's share of his estate and no one will get very much. But at least my kids are protected. How do you explain this to your husband? I don't know. I had a huge arguement just before our wedding over this same issue with my husband. He finally understood it, but if I predecease him, I believe that if I had left my estate to him, he would have equally shared what belongs to my boys with his sisters, so I have made destinct mention that my estate passes to my sons, not my husband, but since I have made provision for child support in it, apparently its quite legal. Thats in Australia, it may be different where you are. Good luck. Its always a dodgy subject talking finances.

Jaime - posted on 06/24/2009

Yes both my husband and I have life insurance and legal wills. We have it stated that if anything happens to both of us then our estate is divided equally between our children. I have 3 daughters and 1 SS. If something is to just happen to myself I have it stated the bulk of my estate will go to my husband and I have a lump sum for each of my daughters and another sum for my SS. The situation with my SS is very complicated due to the lack or relationship with BD and BM.