Beth Pinsker

Where was my father's death certificate when I needed to put my hands on it?

In a file folder named death certificates.

My life is a lot more digital, so my kids would have to go and look for the file folders and files that are appropriately named.

You know, mom's driver's license, mom's life insurance.

All of those things that they would need to find are easily searched for in my digital system.

So it's important because the financial system sees each of us as individuals and will not let somebody else do something for us.

There are certain things a spouse can do, but mostly if they're named jointly on an account.

And so IRA accounts sometimes can't be touched.

or other decisions can't be made unless you have that person's power of attorney.

Like if you have a joint mortgage and you need to take out a home equity loan when one party gets sick and incapacitated, you can't do that without the authority to do that.

They're going to want the signature of the person who's incapacitated who obviously can't give it.

So if you need that money or access to loans of some sort of a joint asset, you need permission.

And if you don't have that permission, you hit this like brick wall.

People always think that they can talk themselves out of situations or talk themselves into whatever they want.

And I'm telling you, this is like a brick wall.

And even for the people who think that they can fake it and you can't really fake stuff anymore.

You can't call up a bank and pretend that you are a parent.

Because they have voice recognition.

They have signature recognition.

They have two-factor authentication on everything.