At the age of 54, Cynthia’s father, David, had a stroke as an unfortunate aftereffect of a routine surgery. Thankfully David was still in the hospital when the stroke happened, otherwise the results could have been much more detrimental. For most surgeries, the risk of perioperative stroke is less than 1%, so this terrible scenario wasn’t even a consideration for Cynthia’s family. They had prepared for David’s expected weeklong stay in the hospital, but they were not prepared for the unexpected.
David was able to receive critical care soon after his stroke, but his whole life changed as he took on a strenuous battle to regain his physical and cognitive abilities. Many people might take for granted things like buttoning a shirt, remembering driving directions, or even brushing their teeth. These are all things that would have new meaning and some added challenges for Cynthia’s father, who is no longer able to work and is on long-term disability.
David is the household COO – managing all the home maintenance, paying household bills, directing all retirement investments, and all other administrative activities. With a career in accounting and being a CPA, Cynthia’s father naturally took responsibility of the household COO duties, but the rest of the family didn’t know what that entailed or where to even begin. What bills are on autopay? Is the property tax part of escrow or separate? Is the house paid off or was there a reverse mortgage taken on the house at a later point in time?
As her dad recovered from the unexpected stroke, Cynthia realized she had been given the invaluable gift of time – more time to enjoy her father’s company and more time to get prepared should the unexpected happen again. Cynthia decided she needed a solution to making sure she or either of her parents would be able to handle all household COO duties. While Cynthia’s mother was known to be the life of the party, she wasn’t exactly keen on digging into the financial details. Cynthia knew that if a fatal incident ever happened to her father again then she would be the one responsible for picking up all of the administrative pieces and figuring out how to keep everything on track.
That’s when Cynthia founded Addio and decided it was the perfect solution for creating a what-if plan and making sure everyone knew how to take over her father’s household COO duties. While Cynthia was building her family’s succession plan, it turns out there was a critical bank account that was funded manually each month and was connected to each of the autopay bills. This crucial piece of information that only her father knew further reiterated the need for Cynthia to have a tool like Addio to help guide the discussion with her parents as well as organize everything necessary for her family.
Are you prepared for the unexpected?
Should you create an online will or use an attorney?
