Terminal illness planning checklist

When you're facing a terminal illness, arranging your accounts and property can reduce some stress for your loved ones. This checklist is just a start. We encourage you to seek advice from medical, legal, tax and financial resources in setting up an estate plan.^{See note1}

Organize legal documents and other important information.

Make sure they're easy to access for the people making decisions.

Key legal documents can include:

• Will
• Trust documents
• Living will or directive to physicians
• Health care power of attorney, or HCPOA
• Durable power of attorney, or DPOA
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, form
• Adoption papers
• Veteran's discharge papers
• Prenuptial agreement
• Marriage certificate
• Divorce decrees
• Death certificate of a spouse
• Citizenship papers, if not born as a U.S. citizen

Other important information can include:

• Inventory of assets with account numbers and passwords, including safe-deposit box access
• Digital assets and passwords like photos or music stored in the cloud
• Access to your computer
• A list of contacts
• Receipts for funeral arrangements
• Obituary and services guidance

Update financial documents and beneficiaries.

If you've already done some estate planning over the years, make sure to update your will.^{See note1} Over time, events like divorce or births of children or grandchildren may affect your wishes. Review who you've named as beneficiaries on bank accounts, life insurance policies, retirement accounts and annuities. These may take precedence over what you've outlined in your will.

It's critical that you keep paying premiums for any life insurance policies so they don't lapse. A DPOA can make financial decisions for you even if you're incapacitated. Another way to manage your assets during incapacity and after your death is through a revocable living trust, or RLT.^{See note1}

Make health and personal decisions.

If you decide to use a HCPOA, be sure to choose someone you trust to carry out your health care wishes. Conflicts of opinion are common, so this person must be able to deal with situations that might be awkward. It can help to give them some guidance.^{See note1} And make sure the HCPOA form is current, with no other conflicting documents in existence.

You can address limits of life-sustaining treatment through a living will or do-not-resuscitate order, also called a DNR. If possible, make decisions on organ donation.^{See note1} And make plans for a funeral service.^{See note1} To find out about military services, veterans can contact the National Cemetery Administration.^{See note1}

Address health care expenses.

They can seem daunting, but a variety of benefits may be available from providers, such as:

• Employers
• Workers' compensation^{See note1}
• Social Security^{See note1}
• Veterans Benefits Administration^{See note1}
• Medicare^{See note1}
• Medicaid^{See note1}
• Private insurance

Consult with financial, tax and legal advisors to check out all resources and strategies available to you.

Know your rights if you're employed.

Contact human resources to review your paid time off, short-term and long-term disability benefits, and continued health care coverage due to job loss under COBRA.^{See note1} This is also a good time to look at your beneficiary designations for employee benefits, such as life insurance, pensions and employer-provided retirement plans. If you're contributing to a retirement savings plan like a 401(k), decide if you want to continue contributions — especially if you receive an employer match.

Plan for care of your dependents.

It's important to plan for the custody or guardianship of minors, other dependents such as elderly parents or special needs persons, and pets. Choose a guardian carefully since they may have to serve in this role for years, and they should be willing and able to do so.

Consider your options as a patient.

Understand your options for managing pain toward the end of life.^{See note1} You may also need to look at palliative or hospice care.^{See note1}

This is a lot to digest, but we hope that we've provided you with a starting point for more detailed consideration and discussions. We encourage you to seek appropriate medical, legal, tax and financial resources as needed, based on your personal circumstances.

Other resources

• Survivor relations team
• Getting your affairs in order^{See note1}
• Tool kit for health care advance planning^{See note1}
• Military survivor benefits^{See note1}
• Coping with grief^{See note1}