Lessons learned, Taking Care of Mom's Final Expenses

[oliver2-44 9,743]

My Mother passed away mid August.  She was 95 and had a good life.  

We were blessed she lived at home until her last 6 weeks.

 

My brother and I are Executors of her Estate..

She had a Funeral Insurance Policy independent of the local funeral home.

The funeral home had to have full payment up front, no waiting on any insurance.

Wow are traditional funerals expensive.

My wife and I have decide to be cremated and have a Celebration of Live when its our time to go.

Cut out as much Funeral Home services / expenses as possible.

She had two hospital stays and a short Nursing Home stay before passing. Multiple inhouse providers, ambulance transport, etc.  So multiple bills.

 

Thankfully she had some money in some CD's Investment's and Life Insurance.   

The good thing was she had set us up as Beneficiaries on these accounts, so we do not have to wait on "Probating her Estate", which takes time, to access them.

The not so good, is all the company representative told us it takes time to process these Beneficiary claims.

For us to have immediate access she would have had to make us Joint owners of the accounts. 

A few months ago she made us Joint owners of her checking account, so at least we had access to that money.

But it has gone fast paying her house bills, 6 week Nursing Home bills, and hospital medical bills .

So having money but not accessible to us  for 60 or 90 days is a challenge. 

When you consider it will probable take 6-12 months to sell her house, the basic electric, gas, insurance and property tax bills keep coming.  

I feel like I'm a " Money Grabber as soon as she's in the ground"  But it's really not for me!

I've spent a lot of phone time and in person turning off her cell phone, house phone, cable TV etc. 

They all want a copy of her death certificate before they will talk to us. 

The Death Certificate took 5 weeks to receive, so that's another month of house bills.

 

Medical Bills and Insurance 

The 2 hospitals didn't do a good job of passing her Insurance Information along to internal providers, or just passed her Medicare Supplement and not her actual Medicare account number.

So I've been calling every company we receive a medical bill from to make sure they have BOTH Medicare and Supplement insurance information. 

One good thing about my calling is a few medical companies have told me to send them a copy of her Death Certificate and they will write off any expenses not paid by insurance.  A big Thank You for that.

Her Primary Care Clinic has a "Medicare Navigator"  That individual has been extremely helpful through her hospital, nursing home and now final medical bills.  

Off the record, she indicate to not pay any medical bills for up to 90 days to let all insurances do their part first.

 

Lessons Learned

I'm really not complaining about taking care of her final expenses, but I want to share some of this process that we normally don't talk about.

She had set up my brother and I up with a HIPPA, Medical and Financial Power of Attorney. But all of those are not applicable/go away at her Death. 

Find the persons Medicare Navigator and ask them lots of questions!

Work with your loved one and their Financial Adviser to figure out how to make some money available for immediate expenses.  

Meet with their lawyer ASAP, to discuss how/when to Probate the Will, and advice on other final bills and processes.

Share that she has passed with insurance, medical billing companies as soon as possible

Contact the 3 Credit Bureau companies and freeze her credit so no one can span and use her credit.

When you cancel future payments on their health Insurance make sure "Bills in Process" will continue to be paid.  It can be a loop hole in some policies.

Request lots of Death Certificates from the state.  We started with 20 and will probable need to request/pay for a few more.

If your state has a property tax, know that they will remove her Homestead Exemption at the date of death, so the rest of the year taxes will be prorated higher.

Dividing house hold goods is an emotional family process.  Lots of individual memories and who wants what, trying to divide equally etc.  To me, the memories will always be there, the rest is just "stuff" 

As you work through the process, think of your loved one often. they worked hard to raise you, so handling their final estate is the least you can do.

 

[ebinmaine 67,464]

A lot of great info there. Thank you for sharing your lessons...

 

I/we were lucky my father had planned his last few and post passing days well. 

 

We were also very appreciative to the local folk. My father being a well liked local business man helped. A LOT. 

 

 

I'll share your post with my sister who's the Executor of our parent's estate. 

Mom is alive and doing well...

 

Hopefully there will be good learning here,  for them. 

[ri702bill 8,318]

I can relate to all this - been there, done that. Sorry for your loss.

The Funeral home I used when my wife passed last year did NOT require payment up front - her life insurance more than covered it a month later.

Here in RI - maybe other states. ANY bills that you get that are in her name only (credit cards, etc) do NOT HAVE to be paid, but should if funds allow.

ANY bills that have been passed onto a 3rd party "Collection Agency" do not have to be paid - the original bill has been signed off to the 3rd party, can usually be settled for pennies on the dollar.

 

Prepaid Funeral Service - make sure there is an irrevocable clause in it to prevent any "Johnnie come Lately" interests from trying to extract funds out of the expenses by deleting pre-arranged services  - sad, but true... been there too...

Watch out for bogus bills and double billing for medical services rendered  - even after her death!

[Brockport Bill 1,661]

RE: lessons learned -- good list I am sure many members can add to the list -- 

 

one is to some how secure her house or definately at minimum immediately remove anything of monetary or family value -- bad guys pray on vacant houses of the deceased by reading obits -- we actually had a great uncles house robbed while the entire family was at his funeral -- the bad guys watch for the schedule of funeral and then rob the house - police will tell you they will actually back a truck up to house and empty it --------  good luck -- sorry for your loss of your mom........

as another fyi for readers here -- be mindful the state probate and estate laws vary from state to state so beware

[Ed Kennell 38,166]

Thank you so much Jim for taking the time to share all this great info.        My 99Yo MIL has been living with us for a year.     We did sell her house, car and household goods when she moved in with us.  We had a problem securing a death certificate for my deceased FIL as it was required to sell the house where he was listed as owner.   We were finally able to get one thru the VA.   Mrs.K is the exec. and has been handling all her finances for a year.   Must say it was a nightmare cancelling all the magazines, donations, and homeowners and life insurance policy  scams.    example...she was paying monthly for a 400K life insurance that she was proud to have purchased several years earlier .  I questioned this and found in the fine print, payable only upon accidental death.     Excellent point to become joint owners of the accounts rather than beneficiaries.

[oliver2-44 9,743]

3 hours ago, Ed Kennell said:

 We had a problem securing a death certificate for my deceased FIL as it was required to sell the house where he was listed as owner.   We were finally able to get one thru the VA.   

My father passed almost 40 years ago. His name has not been on anything for many years.  But we have had to get "original" not copies of his death certificate for 2 things.  

The State of Texas provides them, but its a slow process.

 

Something I will add for anyone shopping for Life Insurance. Ask to see a record of how long it takes them to "Pay a Claim"

 

Thanks for the additional comments and condolences. 

 

[953 nut 55,215]

Sorry for the loss of your mom, glad you and your brother are on the same page dealing with her estate.

5 hours ago, oliver2-44 said:

not pay any medical bills for up to 90 days to let all insurances do their part first.

Any and all bills for my brother's estate were forwarded to me following his passing. I notified all of them that he had passed via email including a scan of his death certificate. I informed then that no bills would be paid for at least 180 days, several responded with offers of greatly reduced final payments if made more promptly. My brother was procrastinator and many of the household bills were still in the name of our mother who had passed away ten years prior so that added a little wrinkle for the attorney to work through. 

5 hours ago, oliver2-44 said:

Share that she has passed with insurance, medical billing companies as soon as possible

The hospital where my brother passed away did a fantastic job on this, could have been a nightmary without their help. 

5 hours ago, oliver2-44 said:

think of your loved one often. they worked hard to raise you, so handling their final estate is the least you can do.

My brother lived in my parent's house where we grew up in upstate New York. I moved from there fifty years ago so some of my cousins worked with me on so many things. After my brother's memorial service several of my cousins and I got together at his house and made decisions of who got what from the house. In the weeks between the memorial service and the closing on the house they cleared out a lot of stuff that was of no interest to me and boxed up a lot of things they felt I would want. They were great.

I had (in my opinion) the "best attorney on the face of the earth" I only had to make two trips to central New York to settle everything. The attorney found me a buyer for the house "as is", managed to transfer title to his car to one of my cousins with no sales or transfer taxes and handled all of the government notifications including his final tax forms for the state and federal taxes. His total fee was less that the real-estate commission I would have had to pay if he hadn't found me a buyer.

[Beap52 811]

This topic is going to touch every one of us at some time.  I suppose that we are too naive to touch on this subject in our younger years.  (My first income tax broadsided me and having been introduced to that my final year of high school may have been beneficial.)  

 

Mom has been in assisted living for a year.  She took out nursing home insurance 26 years ago when dad died. I believe she paid $128 in the early years and was paying $304 a month until she started drawing it last October.   The original insurer was sold to another company.   Early on, I found myself on the phone bi-weekly for 45 minute sessions trying to understand all the details the insurance company needed to process the claims sent by the assisted living home.   Now, about every other month or so I have to call to find out why they didn't pay.  Usually, it because "the date in wrong location", "it looks like it was photocopied", "it appears whiteout was used", and "the signature looked too perfect"  (the director of assisted living corrected this by signing her name in different location within the area provided.)   I estimate mom will need to stay in assisted care for at least 2 1/2 years to get her investment back without interest.  

 

I am thankful mom gave forethought to her care.  But if I wasn't here to deal with the insurance company, I believe she would just cut a check to the assisted living.  

[peter lena 8,623]

@oliver2-44 sorry to hear of your MIL,S  passing , as said, my wife was a nursing home office manager , EVERY STATE  HAS A DIFFERENT LAW / LEGAL STATIS , PERTAINING TO  ANYTHING , if anyone is not up to date on it , might be a good idea , to VERIFY  HOW IT APPLIES TO YOU ! no one will tell you , that you are screwing up ,  you will find out  , after  your opportunity  has passed . everyone's  set up is different, verify and get up to date , makes things much easier , pete  

[stevasaurus 22,732]

With my Mom, I had her set up a trust for her 3 kids that expressed her wishes.  My sister was co-owner on her checking account, so we had access to money for expenses.  The lawer was excellent so everything went very smooth and no probate because of the trust.

 

If possible, be ahead of the game, know what interested parties want and get plenty of Original Death Certificates.  The Crematory furnished the Death Certificates...took about a week.

[Ed Kennell 38,166]

This may not apply to all states, but when the time came to sell my mother's home in Maryland,  we were surprised to learn that non-residents of Maryland in addition to paying normal closing costs are required to pay an additional 8% of the selling price to the state of Maryland.

[Handy Don 12,217]

1 minute ago, Ed Kennell said:

This may not apply to all states, but when the time came to sell my mother's home in Maryland,  we were surprised to learn that non-residents of Maryland in addition to paying normal closing costs are required to pay an additional 8% of the selling price to the state of Maryland.

In closing my Dad’s estate there, I was surprised to learn that as personal representative (a.k.a. executor) I could not recover any of my expenses from the estate, not even for postage or travel.