Check your work benefits for unexpected perks and benefits

When an uncle of mine died around 2008, he left behind a wife and three kids… as well as an ex-wife, three kids from his first marriage, and one stepdaughter who I suspect even now doesn’t know he wasn’t her biological father.

Have you noticed what isn’t on that list?

A will. He didn’t leave a will.

As a result, a big part of my uncle’s legacy turned out to be an enormous legal mess. The aforementioned stepdaughter? Totally hated the second wife, whom she blamed for the breakup of her mom and dad’s marriage. I would note that the stepdaughter (let’s call her Cousin) and the second wife (Aunt2) were very very close in age. The second wife, as well, was completely scatter brained with money, had never had a real job, and had no clue about anything financial at all.

Cousin sued for a bigger part of the estate; Aunt2, who had three kids in their teens, countered. This pretty much tore my uncle’s family apart, with everyone picking a side and everyone trying to impose their own version of a solution. Ultimately, the only ones who really got anything were the lawyers. A huge part of his estate was squandered on the fight, and over the time it took to get everything sorted, assets that could have been put to use were lying there doing nothing.

Even worse, I remember the pain and animus that the whole battle generated. People were viciously angry with each other for years. My uncle was a very affectionate, very loving man. He lived for his family; I can’t imagine that even in his worst nightmares he imagined his family members going for each other’s throats like this.

So when I (finally, in my early 40s) got married, I decided it was time to write my will. I have no siblings, so before this pretty much everything I had would just have gone to my mom, which was fine. But I had reached a point in my life where not only did I have a partner, I had enough assets that I wanted to leave some small bequests to people and charities that were important to me.

But lawyers are expensive. Whoo! Even just getting basic legal documents can cost a lot of money. And as I have repeatedly establised on this blog, I am not keen on spending a lot of money.

So I checked my work benefits.

Et voila! I had a little something called legal insurance. Or, at any rate, I could have legal insurance if I opted in during the annual enrollment period, or when I went through a major life change… like getting married.

For $17.20 a month, paid by payroll deduction, I would have access to a network of lawyers, from whom I could pick one to handle basic estate planning documents like a will and a living will for the grand total of $0 — a much, much better deal than the hundreds (potentially thousands) of dollars this would cost me if I just went it alone.

I had literally never heard of legal insurance until I saw it mentioned on some random site. When you get hired somewhere new, typically they go over things like retirement plans or health insurance or (hopefully) where the bathroom is. This was a benefit that was certainly little-known to me, but it’s one that wound up saving me a lot of money.

All of which is to say: Check your work benefits. Talk to HR. Ask if there are other perks you should know about. When a major life event is about to happen or happens, check to see if there’s a way to cushion the financial blow through work. Maybe there’s a benefit you’ve never even heard of that’ll keep $$$ in your pocket, instead of going to someone else’s.