AmigOmega Publishing offers information products for today's families.
Yes, We know that a subject that involves talking about serious injury or death is absolutely no fun. In fact, it's a little depressing, but very necessary. You owe it to yourself and, most of all, to your family to finally spend a little time making some smart estate planning decisions that will pay huge dividends when you're gone.
Our main offering is called a Personal Affairs Record, or just PAR.
What is a PAR, who needs one, and why?
Tragedy can strike a family at any time, which is why every family needs a PAR. A PAR is an organizing tool for estate planning. It is a summary "document" containing information important to a family in the event an important member becomes incapacitated or dies. A PAR is one of three essential estate planning documents that everyone should have. The other two, the health-care directive and a will, are discussed here along with other related documents.
Every head-of-household should create a PAR. If you are asked to be the executor of someone's estate, you will want to be sure the person who asked you to accept this responsibility has one in place. It will save you weeks or months of work and expense when the time comes to perform your duty.
The reason many individuals and families do not have a PAR in place is because, previous to our offering, creating a such a document was too time consuming and keeping it updated, all but impossible. It also isn't on anyone's priority list. It can be, especially if the partner and/or a named executor insist and assist.
Having a PAR in electronic form - a digital PAR - has an additional advantages beyond just being the right thing to do for your loved ones. It makes you and your family more productive in day to day life. Having your information close at hand, yet secure, enables everyone to take action without delay.
This sounds great, but isn't it risky?
Identity theft is a real concern, but the risks can be addressed with the proper measures. Most identify theft cases result from theft of information from paper documents. Using electronic storage with encryption and wisely chosen passcodes is actually much safer than keeping information on paper.
OK, so what information does a PAR contain?
Major sections of a PAR include the following:
- Identity information about Family members
- Advisors to the family
- Summary information about Assets
- Summary information about Liabilities
- Summary information about Insurance
Most of the information used to create a PAR can obtained from your paper files or from your on-line accounts at banks, insurance companies, and so on. Creating it can be a family exercise too.
Wait, there's more!
Additional documents are provided to help you record infomation about:
- Services used by your household, such as doctors, home and auto repair services, and so on. You will be surprised at how many you use. Imagine you are going on vacation and leave someone to look after your house and pets. You can easily print off a list of service providers to call in case of any emergencies while you are away!
- Internet browser bookmarks. You probably use a password manager to simplify entry of login information when you access your bank's website. But what happens if you lose that information? Using this tool, you will have a means of storing (at least a backup of) the links to web-sites you use along with login information (which you can encrypt for security)
- Your contacts book. Most likely, you store contact information in your email program - whether on-line or on your own computer. Using this tool you can maintain (at least a backup), and share with selected family members, names, address information, and phone numbers you now have in a paper address book and/or on your computer. Now you can maintain this information independent of your phones and computers but have it accessible on all of them.
With all of these extras, you will be even more productive and free up time to spend … with your family!
How does all this function come about … isn't there more than just forms?
PAR is designed to take maximum advantage of a new multi-platform application called Evernote®. Evernote is accessible on the web via a browser and also runs natively on Windows PCs, Macs, and a number of smart phones. Evernote (see August 29th NY Times article) enables data replication, includes security features such as encryption of sensitive information, and supports sharing of the PAR and PAR-Plus data among family members, as determined by the data owner - typically the Head-of-Household. Enter and encrypt data on your PC or Mac, and replicate to other devices.
Are there other options than using Evernote?
Yes, of course. The forms that make up PAR can be printed for data gathering and the information maintained on paper, if desired. Since the PAR forms are HTML tables (the language of web pages). They can be edited and maintained using products such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
MS Word does not provide sharing, syncing or encryption, at least at the present time. Google Docs, at present, provides sharing, but neither syncing nor encryption. Evernote provides all three, so you do not need to use an independent encryption tool as with the other choices. in the final analysis, the choice is yours, depending on your needs and preferences.
Remember that maintaining records in electronic form has many advantages over paper:
- Electronic information is more accessible (yet secure with encryption)
- It can be searched, just as you can search the web with your browser
- Information is legible, since it was typed in, not handwritten
- Information is more easily kept up-to-date than paper forms.
A Digital PAR makes sense for today's married-with-children households in which ownership of multiple gadgets and communication tools is a standard feature of family life according to a PEW Research Center study:
Curious about what a PAR looks like? Take a quick tour right now to find out.
Completing your PAR brings peace of mind
Hate filling out forms? You are not alone. However, PAR forms are compact and modular in nature. Unlike a long complex form, PAR forms are easy to do in batches. They are designed to be easier to read on a smaller screen (smart phone) than other more complex designs intended to save pages of paper. Have six bank accounts and twelve children? No problem. Forms can be merged to meet your needs or kept as independent records … remember they are searchable, so it doesn't really matter!
The best part is, once you are done, you will have your information well organized. As you encounter the need to complete forms in daily life, the task will be made easier since you will have the information quickly at hand. You can search for just what you need, and if you are filling out a form on-line, you can just cut and paste data and be finished quickly.
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