Imagine a Tuesday morning when the person who handles your family's money cannot be reached. An accident, a hospital, a sudden illness. Within hours, someone has to decide who to call, which bills are due, and whether there is a will. The spouse or adult child who steps in is frightened, tired, and has never seen the paperwork.
Now ask the question that matters. Not "Do we have a plan?" but this: could they find what they need in an hour?
That is the 60-Minute Test. It is simpler than it sounds, and harder.
Having a plan and finding it are different things
Most people who think about their estate think about documents: a will, perhaps a trust, some insurance policies, a pension. Those matter. But a document nobody can find, or nobody knows exists, or that sits behind a password nobody has, protects no one.
The first days after a death or serious illness are not calm. Decisions that would take an afternoon in ordinary life take a week, because the people making them are grieving and do not know where to look. The test asks whether you have made their job possible.
The test
Hand your records to your executor, or whoever would step in, at 9:00. By 10:00, they should be able to answer these ten questions without calling anyone:
- Which bank accounts do we have, and who holds them?
- Who is our financial adviser, and how do I reach them?
- Where is the will, and who is the executor?
- Which insurance policies exist, and who benefits?
- Who is named as beneficiary on each pension and retirement account?
- How do I get into the key accounts and devices?
- Where are the property deeds, titles and other original documents?
- Who should be told first?
- What are your wishes for medical care, and who speaks for you?
- Who are the trustees of any trusts, and how do I contact them?
Try it honestly. Answer as if you were the person standing in your kitchen with a folder. Wherever you hesitate, you have found a gap. Better still, ask your spouse or partner to try it without your help.
Four places worth checking first
These are easy to overlook.
Access. Accounts and devices are only useful if someone can open them. A password manager helps, together with a note saying where its master access is kept and who can reach it.
Beneficiary designations. In many countries, pensions, retirement accounts and life insurance follow the named beneficiary, whatever the will says. If you have married, divorced or had children since you filled them in, check them. Ask your adviser how this works where you live.
People. Does your executor know they are the executor? Do they know where to look? A name in a document is not the same as a person who is ready.
Originals. Some documents matter in their original form. Write down where they are, and who else knows.
Fixing it, step by step
You do not need a weekend, but you do need a few focused hours.
- Take the test yourself. Write an answer to each question, and mark every gap.
- Record who to call first. Family, adviser, solicitor or attorney, accountant, insurer. Names and numbers.
- Record where things are, not what they are worth. Where the will is kept, which accounts exist (the last four digits are enough), which policies you hold.
- Tell one person where it all is. A record nobody knows about is no use.
- Put a review date in your diary. Once a year, and after any big change in your life.
What not to put in it
Do not write passwords or full account and identity numbers in a document that could be lost, photographed or emailed. Record where to find them instead: "The password manager is on my laptop; the recovery kit is in the safe at home." If you keep your records in a file on a computer, store it somewhere encrypted and do not email it. Keep any access information on a separate printed page, stored apart from the rest.
It is a conversation, not only a binder
The binder is the easy half. The harder half is one short sentence, said once, to the person who would need it: "If anything happens to me, this is where everything is."
Many people never say it because it feels morbid. It is the opposite. It is one of the quietest acts of care you can offer your family.
Where to start
The free starter edition of The 60-Minute Family Emergency Binder covers your contacts, where things are kept and the first 72 hours. You will find it on the For Families page. The complete seven-section edition is included in The Beaumont Family Legacy System, along with the tools for the conversations that go with it.
Sterling Beaumont writes about the human side of wealth transfer. His three books, The $84 Trillion Shift, Legacy Without Conflict and The Prepared Heir, explore the conversations, expectations and structures that determine what survives across generations.