Nobody wants to sit their kids down and talk about money. It feels premature, morbid, or just plain awkward. But the families who have this conversation are the ones who avoid the worst outcomes when something unexpected happens.
We’re not talking about handing over your bank passwords or sharing your account balances. We’re talking about making sure someone (at least one trusted person) knows enough to step in if you can’t manage things yourself.
Here’s what that conversation should cover:
Where things are
Your super fund. Your bank accounts. Your investments. Your insurance policies. Your will and where the original is kept. Your power of attorney documents. If you have a financial adviser, their name and contact details.
You don’t need to share balances or specifics. You need to make sure someone knows the institutions involved and how to reach them. A list on a single piece of paper, kept in a known location, is enough.
What you want
If something happens to you, what do you want done? This goes beyond your will. It is about your preferences. Do you want to stay in your home as long as possible? Do you have views on aged care? Are there financial commitments (gifts, donations, support for grandchildren) that you’d want continued?
These conversations feel uncomfortable precisely because they matter. The alternative is your family guessing, disagreeing, and potentially making decisions you wouldn’t have chosen.
Who has authority
Power of attorney is not optional. If you’re incapacitated and nobody has legal authority to manage your finances, your family will need to apply to a tribunal. That process takes months, costs thousands, and removes your choice entirely.
Appoint someone you trust. Make sure they know they’ve been appointed. Make sure your adviser knows too. This is one of the first things we check in every annual review.
The real risk
The risk isn’t that your children will mismanage your money. The risk is that nobody knows where to find anything, nobody has the authority to act, and your family spends months untangling a mess during the worst period of their lives.
One conversation. One list. One set of documents in one known place. That’s the difference between a family that copes and a family that struggles.
If you’d like help structuring this conversation, or if you want us to walk through it with you and your family together, we do this regularly. It’s one of the most valuable things we offer, and it costs nothing extra.
