Have the money conversation with your aging parents while everyone is healthy, not in a hospital hallway. You don’t need their net worth. You need to know where the documents are, who their advisors are, what insurance they carry, and whether a power of attorney exists.
Too often, this talk happens after a fall or a stroke, when nobody can find anything. Picture a daughter whose father is in intensive care. His mortgage is due, his bank won’t discuss his accounts with her, and no one knows which company holds his life insurance. With no power of attorney on file, paying his bills may mean going to court.
Avoiding that takes one uncomfortable afternoon, and the list is shorter than you might fear. You aren’t asking what your parents are worth, the question that makes the talk feel like an audit. You’re asking where things are and who handles what:
- Where the will, any trust, and the beneficiary forms are kept
- Whether they have a durable power of attorney for finances, and who holds it
- Whether a health care power of attorney, a living will, and any do-not-resuscitate order or organ donor choice are on paper, and who has copies
- Who their attorney, accountant, and financial advisor are
- What insurance they carry, including life, health, and long-term care
- How the bills get paid, and from which accounts
Open with your own planning instead of theirs. Say you just named a health care proxy and realized you don’t know what they’ve set up. A friend’s parent getting sick works, too. Let them decide how much to share and who takes each role.
Be ready for two hard truths. The money may be thinner than you assumed, so listen rather than judge. And trouble can show up in money first. The National Institute on Aging says money problems may be among the earliest signs of dementia, such as unpaid bills or a burst of new purchases, and scammers target older adults. People 60 and older reported nearly $5 billion in fraud losses to the FBI in 2024.
The money stays theirs, and so do the choices. Your part is making sure that if someone ever has to act for them, it’s the person they picked, doing what they asked.
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