I want to introduce you to Susan and Rick. Susan and Rick were high school sweethearts. They live simply and save as best they can. Family, to them, is everything. I was referred to Susan and Rick as they were just coming up for air. I learned how Rick stood by Susan through years of her fighting breast cancer when their daughter was 11 and their son just 9 years old.

As they sat across the table, they admitted to carrying guilt for delaying sitting down with me and not forcing themselves to prepare for the unexpected sooner but were thankful they could make decisions now. They discussed who the guardian would be and who would make medical decisions for them if they could not. We talked about whether I thought it was a smart move to use some of their savings to pay for the official legal documents.

We talked about the best time to convert her term insurance, and we started the paperwork for Rick to get the right death benefit in place. We debated how much to save for retirement and if that left them anything to help with the kids’ college. We even talked about whether they could afford, after these three incredibly tough years, for their family of four to take a long weekend trip to a lake house that someone would rent to them for cheap — all while paying medical bills and keeping up with the mortgage and two young kids.

Over the years, finances stabilized and the exhaustion of their prior circumstances joyfully withered away. As the kids got their driver’s licenses and Susan and Rick were no longer Mom and Dad Uber, they were able to pick back up some old hobbies like dancing and card nights with friends. And, while they complained a bit when their daughter moved back home after college and got a job at the same company her father worked at for decades, I knew they loved her being back. And I knew Rick secretly loved driving to and from work with their daughter. I knew because he called it “carpooling” not “Dad taxi” anymore.

So, it is when I got a brief voicemail from Susan right around the Fourth of July that I called back half expecting I would need to convince her to spend some of the money they were saving specifically for an anniversary getaway for her and Rick. It is only when I heard Susan’s first words that I realized how out of place my overexuberant hello was when she picked up. And how odd it was for her to hear, “How are you?”

It was this call where she let me know Rick had been in a coma. He was in an accident in broad daylight on the highway and airlifted to the hospital. She had been at his bedside with her children when they made the decision to remove him from life support after it finally sunk in that there was, and would be, no brain function.

We sat together at the same kitchen table. We paid the claims and updated her beneficiaries. We talked about how she would not have financial burdens. We updated her legal documents, and she showed me where her inventory was and her wishes. She said, “I’m going to tell you the same thing Rick said about me: ‘If something happens to me, I want my kids to be OK.’ OK is a horrible term for it, but you know what I mean.”

I left feeling like we had covered it all. It wasn’t until months later when I received a call from Susan. Someone had stolen Rick’s identity. Yes, her deceased husband’s identity. Just when the sympathy cards stopped, she started getting credit card statements in the mail with his name on them. She started getting bills. A fraudulent tax return was filed in his name. She was wholly devastated by just the thought of who would prey on a widow, any widow! I was disgusted to find out this was all too common. It is the fastest growing white-collar crime in America. Over 2,000 people per day in the United States get their identities stolen after death.

They wondered what they could have done to prevent this. And so did I! I wish I had known to tell Mary to do the following:

• Keep age and other personal identifying information, like mother’s maiden name, out of the obituary.
• Report Rick’s death to a Social Security office.
• Contact the DMV and cancel his driver’s license to prevent duplicates.
• Check his credit report and ask each credit reporting bureau to put on a “deceased alert.”

We did everything else right, but I just didn’t know.

What is your “If I only knew” moment? Or your “If they only knew”?

Is it when someone in your office got a call to pay a death claim to an ex-spouse because a beneficiary form was never updated?

Is it when your charitably inclined uncle got dementia and your cousins were left wondering the wishes for care and whether to maintain contributions to the causes he supported so dearly with a sound mind?

Is it when someone’s child at college got sick and the parents couldn’t get any information because there was no health care proxy?

Is it when a friend with a special needs child passed away and you realized they never actually funded their trust or redeeded their property?

Having been in this industry for just over a decade, I have paid some incredible claims. Whatever memory this example sparked in you, please find someone to share your story with this week. And, if you are lucky enough to be the person who hears another person’s story, listen with the intention to put their lessons into service. And let’s celebrate our unique stories and successes with the earned confidence everybody in this room shares — the knowledge that we go far above and beyond for our clients to make sure we never have to hear them say, “If I only knew.”

Michaela Scott, CFP, MSFS, is a five-year MDRT member with two Court of the Table qualifications and strategic benefits consultant for Borislow Insurance. Her professional accolades highlight her mission to help clients identify and thoughtfully address their unique goals and most pressing concerns. She earned her master’s in financial services.