Given all of the dire warnings about COVID19, what should you be doing to prepare? Here is what I am recommending to my clients, family and friends:

1.       WHO depends on you?

Make a contingency plan and line up a back-up individual to care for those persons - and animals - if you become ill and need to isolate yourself, or if you become ill enough that you are hospitalized.

2.       WHAT are your day to day responsibilities?

Do you have another person who has the ability and the tools to fill in for you? This could be work-related cross-training, educating someone on the home-front about pet care, home alarm codes, appliance operation, etc.

Do you have the proper tools in place? By this I mean Powers of Attorney – both financial and healthcare. These are essential tools.

3.       WHEN are critical upcoming or ongoing due-dates?

Create a list of when ongoing bills are due, so your agent knows when things need to be paid or when deadlines are for things like prescription refills, college deposits, camp registration, etc.

4.       WHERE are your important papers?

Create a roadmap for whoever may step in for you: where do you bank? what pharmacy are the family prescriptions refilled? where is your original POA? where is your will? where are passwords stored?

I am an advocate of planning. It’s what I do for a living, but even if I didn’t, I would still recommend reviewing this list, if only to put your mind at ease.