RETIREMENT REPORT Your Guide to a Richer Retirement VOLUME 27 | NUMBER 5 | MAY 2020 | $5.00 income. But after decades of purchasing life insurance through work, he had recently taken a new job and hadn’t yet signed up for the benefit. For Sue, memories of financial insecurity as a child ignited a flurry of action. Within IN THIS ISSUE weeks of her hus- band’s death, she MANAGING YOUR FINANCES negotiated with the 8 | Actively Managed Funds synagogue where she worked on a INVESTING contract basis to be- 10 | Bonds for Protection come an employee YOUR HEALTH with benefits. She 11 | Participating in Clinical Trials then worked out a personal loan with 12 | Your Questions Answered a friend to keep her 14 | Information to Act On youngest child in college and cut liv- ESTATE PLANNING ing expenses to 16| The Job of an Executor roughly half of her RETIREMENT LIVING new income. 17 | Adjusting to Retirement The Next Steps for a “I think I was able to do all of that TAXES Surviving Spouse because I was in 20 | 2020 RMDs shock,” she says. “I INSIDER INTERVIEW LIKE A LOT OF COUPLES IN THEIR 50S, SUE KNIGHT have a certain way of 22 | Complicated Grief Deutsch and her husband, Michael, looked for- putting things aside ward to a financially secure retirement filled with when I have to.” travel and time with their three adult children. But in Of the roughly 15 2009, Michael was diagnosed with colon cancer and million currently widowed people in the United States, passed away at age 55. 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That’s why the oft-quoted mantra of telling grieving spouses not to make any financial decisions for a year Get Organized is misguided at best and can be disastrous at worst. Now, for the practical matters. If it’s still early days, be- Many decisions simply can’t be postponed for a year. gin by making sure the funeral director you’re working And the fog of widowhood doesn’t magically lift at with has notified the Social Security Administration of the end of the first year anyway. the death and ordered 15 to 20 certified copies of the Of course, racing to pay off debts immediately, death certificate for tasks such as retitling the mort- engaging in retail therapy or rashly selling the family gage and changing owner names on financial accounts. home can be perilous, too, notes Susan Bradley, Gather birth and marriage certificates for you and founder of the Sudden Money Institute, which trains your spouse, birth certificates for minor children, life financial advisers to work with clients in transition. insurance policies, recent tax returns, military benefit “We advocate a much more nuanced timeline,” says policies and discharge papers, recent employer pay Bradley. stubs, legal documents including trusts and wills, She recommends breaking tasks down into three property deeds, and statements for checking, 401(k), piles—urgent, soon and later—with those in the last pile brokerage and IRA accounts. perhaps two years or more down the road, depending You’ll need one or more of these documents to apply on individual circumstances. A surviving stay-at-home for Social Security benefits, work with your spouse’s spouse with school-age kids may have the resources to employer to distribute life insurance and other benefits keep the family home until the youngest graduates, for such as final pay and retirement plans, collect private example, but then may need (or want) to downsize and life insurance proceeds and create a cash flow state- return to work. An empty nester who had been count- ment and household budget. Get a notebook for log- ing on a few more years of a spouse’s income before ging conversations with your spouse’s employer, Social retirement—and at least a few years of dual Social Se- Security clerks and others. Advisers and survivors say curity checks—may need to adjust more quickly. this is essential in the foggy, early days of grief. Acknowledging survivors’ unique circumstances is “I kept notes on everything,” says Deutsch. “Every critical, Bradley says. Some of her widowed clients are time I made a call I wrote down a date and case num- also caring for adult children with disabilities or man- ber for the call so when I would call again and get a aging care for aging parents, she says. new person I could tell them the number.” “It’s unbelievable the complications some people Equally important is keeping an expandable file have to deal with,” she says. “We do case work with near the notebook. The file should hold death certifi- groups of advisers, and three times in the last year cates and other important papers, correspondence re- our widows’ special-interest tract had clients who lated to the spouse’s death and current bills due and found out their husbands had been cheating for years. paid. If your spouse handled the bills and you need a There are layers of complications to the grief.” new system, create one box or tray for unopened mail Taking the time to name all of the stresses and and make sure every piece goes into that box. 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Denise Elliott Ellen Chang Telephone: 212-221-9595 POSTMASTER: Send address changes E-mail: [email protected] Harriet Edleson VICE PRESIDENT FOR CONTENT to Kiplinger’s RETIREMENT REPORT, P.O. Box 420308, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0308. Katherine Reynolds Lewis Sarah Stevens ONLINE SUBSCRIPTIONS Janet Kidd Stewart Subscribers may sign up Alina Tugend PUBLISHER for free online access, The Kiplinger Washington Paul Vizza including past issues Editors, Inc., is part of the ART DIRECTOR Telephone: 202-887-6558 and annual indexes, at Dennis Publishing Ltd Group. Natalie Kress E-mail: [email protected] KiplingerRetirement.com. MAY 2020 KIPLINGER’S RETIREMENT REPORT | 3 While he didn’t need a financial windfall, he says he wasn’t prepared for all the minutiae surrounding death.