Senior Citizens: Does Your Legal Health Need a Checkup?

How's your legal health? None of us is guaranteed tomorrow. It's an unfortunate fact of life is that, young or old, people die every day, or get flooded out of their homes, or suffer an injury that leaves them in a vegetative state, unable to make their wishes known. Of course it's most important for senior citizens to have their legal affairs in order.

That's why, before the unexpected happens, seniors should take this legal health checkup to ensure their legal ducks are in a row.

Legal Advisor: If you don't already have a professional legal advisor such as an attorney, you need to select one so that someone is in your corner, equipped to advocate for you when you need it. Many attorneys specialize in helping seniors plan for the future, though any competent legal eagle may be able to answer your questions.

Important Legal Documents: Are your important documents together in a secure location like a file cabinet or safe deposit box? This should include birth certificates, your marriage license, adoption records, decree of divorce, military discharge papers, immigration and naturalization papers, insurance policies, real estate deeds. Obviously this is important whether you're a senior citizen or just out of college.

Legal Will or Trust: Have you created a legal document determining what happens to your assets if you should die? To ensure that your assets pass to your intended heirs and prevent a mountain of legal red tape for your family, talk to your attorney about a will or trust. Then make sure someone knows where your original will is. If it cannot be found, the courts may decide it doesn't exist or that you destroyed it.

Investments: Is your money invested wisely to ensure your future? You should be comfortable with the level of risk involved for your station in life. The closer you are to being an official senior citizen, or to taking early retirement, the less risk you will want to assume.

Agent: Who will make decisions for you if you cannot? You should select a family member, loyal friend, or trusted attorney or other professional advisor to whom you can assign a legal power of attorney to make your financial and/or health decisions. Giving someone you trust your power of attorney is like giving a friend a spare set of keys to your car. If you become unable to make your own decisions, someone you trust can step in. You can divide the powers of attorney, for example, giving your adult daughter your health power of attorney, and your long-time legal adviser your financial power of attorney.

Legal Title to Your Assets: How are your assets owned? For example, if you and another person live together (other than your spouse) and own the home as "joint tenants," if you should pass away, your ownership of the home will transfer to the other owner. That may be what you intend, but if it isn't, you should contact your legal advisor. He or she can explain the various forms of ownership so you can ensure the results you want, rather than leaving it to the law to determine.

Insurance: Do you have all the insurance you need? That is, do you have adequate life insurance to protect your family from an unwieldy debt burden if you should die?

Other Insurance: What about long-term care insurance for yourself and your spouse or for an elderly parent if one of you should need to enter a nursing home? An expense such as that could wipe out your savings. Just be careful when choosing this plan. Make certain you know what it provides. The right policy can yield tax-free benefits, and the premiums may be tax deductible. What about your homeowner policy? Recently the cost of home building has soared, which means that, if your home is destroyed, the replacement cost may far exceed the limits of your homeowner policy. Make sure yours is upgraded to an amount that will cover the expense if you must rebuild.

Benefits: Are you receiving the benefits you qualify for, such as Social Security, Medicare, pensions from your job or the military? Each year after age 25 you should receive a lifetime earnings statement from the Social Security Administration (SSA). Look it over and notify the SSA if anything is missing or incorrect.

- If there are errors on your Social Security statement, report them by calling: 1-800-772-1213, or visit the SSA.gov Web site.

- For private pensions, if the benefit you are receiving doesn't seem right, ask the administrator to recalculate it.

- For help with a federally funded pension, call the Pension Rights Center in Washington, DC, at 1-202-296-3776.