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Benefits Beyond Work

Changes at Home

Losing a Loved One

After a loss, insurance, benefits, beneficiaries, healthcare, financial accounts, and household responsibilities can all require attention. You don't have to identify everything at once.

Tell Us What's ChangingExplore All Life Changes

What's changing

Here's what typically shifts.

The loss of a spouse, partner, parent, or other loved one can create financial and benefit responsibilities at a time when a family is already dealing with significant change. The goal is not to address everything immediately — it is to understand what may need attention now, next, and later.

What to consider

Questions worth asking.

  • Existing Life Insurance

    Was life insurance coverage in force personally or through work?

  • Workplace Benefits

    Could survivor benefits, employer-sponsored insurance, retirement benefits, or other workplace resources exist?

  • Beneficiary Designations

    Which insurance benefits or financial accounts have beneficiary designations that may now become relevant?

  • Healthcare

    Did anyone in the household receive healthcare coverage through the person who died?

  • Household Income

    How does the loss affect household income and financial responsibilities?

  • Financial Accounts

    What financial accounts may require beneficiary, ownership, contact, or other appropriate follow-up?

  • Existing Protection

    Does the surviving household have existing insurance or protection that should be reviewed?

Where to start

Now, next, and later.

Not everything needs attention at once. This ordering can help a household decide what to look at first.

  1. Step 1

    Now

    Identify immediate coverage, claims, benefit, and household-continuity needs.

  2. Step 2

    Next

    Review beneficiary-related items, healthcare changes, household protection, and financial-account follow-up.

  3. Step 3

    Later

    Review longer-term protection, beneficiary preparedness, legacy considerations, and other household needs once immediate matters have been addressed.

Benefits you may already have

Start with what already exists.

The first step is to identify and organize what exists, so the household can review and coordinate at a reasonable pace. Benefits Beyond Work does not administer, control, or provide investment advice on financial accounts.

  • Life insurance policies, personal and workplace.
  • Workplace benefits, including survivor and retirement benefits where they exist.
  • Beneficiary designations across policies and accounts.
  • Relevant financial accounts and where they are held.
  • Healthcare coverage for anyone covered through the person who died.
  • Existing household insurance for the surviving household.
  • Trusted professional relationships already in place.

A life change doesn’t always mean you need new insurance.

Household considerations

Who else could this change affect?

A loss changes coverage and responsibilities for more than one person.

  • A surviving spouse or partner.
  • Children and other dependents.
  • Caregivers who may take on new responsibilities.
  • Beneficiaries named on policies or accounts.
  • Other household members whose coverage or income is affected.

How we help

A Financial Relationship Manager for what’s changing

Insurance decisions rarely happen in isolation.

A Financial Relationship Manager is the person who stays with a member through a change. Not a product specialist assigned to one transaction — a consistent point of relationship who understands the household's situation and helps coordinate what happens next.

  1. Understand what's changing

    Start with the actual event — a retirement date, a job change, a birthday, a diagnosis — and what it affects.

  2. Consider what you already have

    Review coverage and resources already available through work, a spouse's plan, or existing policies before anything new is discussed.

  3. Identify household needs

    Look across the people who depend on those benefits, not only the person whose situation changed.

  4. Prioritize what needs attention

    Separate what has a deadline from what can wait, so the urgent decisions get made on time.

  5. Coordinate next steps

    Bring in the appropriate licensed expertise or insurance solution when one is genuinely needed.

  6. Provide continuity

    Stay the same point of contact as needs evolve, rather than restarting the relationship with each change.

A Financial Relationship Manager is a relationship steward and coordinator. The role does not by itself make someone an investment adviser, financial planner, attorney, tax adviser, or estate-planning professional. When a need calls for one of those disciplines, the role is to help you get to the right professional — not to substitute for one.

Tell Us What’s Changing

Relevant solutions

Given what's changing, here's where we can help.

Legacy considerations lead here. Healthcare surfaces when survivor or dependent coverage changes, and retirement considerations surface where survivor or retirement-related matters are genuinely relevant.

A consistent point of relationship.

A Financial Relationship Manager can help provide a consistent point of relationship as the household identifies what may need attention, organizes next steps, and coordinates with appropriate professionals and resources.

Related life changes

Changes that often arrive together.

You don't have to identify every next step at once.

Tell us what's changing and we'll help the household understand what may need attention now, next, and later.

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