Tips and Strategies for Navigating the Loss of a Spouse with Laura Russo – Ep 075

Keith Ellis: Welcome, everybody, to another edition of the Retirement Roadmap, brought to you by SHP Financial. My name is Keith Ellis, the host. And we’re joined here today by Laura Russo. Laura is an advisor in our office and she’s been with us for how long, Laura?

Laura Russo: Oh my gosh, I’m coming on almost six years now.

Keith Ellis: Geez.

Laura Russo: Yeah. Time flies.

Keith Ellis: When you’re having fun.

Laura Russo: So much fun.

Keith Ellis: There you go. But today we’re not going to have, well, the topic we have that we’re going to discuss today isn’t that fun.

Laura Russo: Not the most fun topic, but I think we are going to be okay.

Keith Ellis: It doesn’t mean you should turn your radio dial.

Laura Russo: No. Please don’t.

Keith Ellis: You need to listen.

Laura Russo: It’s an important topic, that’s for sure.

Keith Ellis: Exactly. And sadly, one that I feel like my team, and I think your team as well, has been going through a little bit more than we want to.

Laura Russo: Yeah, definitely.

Keith Ellis: And today we’re going to talk about what happens when a spouse passes. And I thought about this as we were preparing, and where I was two weeks ago is late Wednesday, I think it was a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon at a funeral home down in Harwich, and a spouse or a couple that I was working with, one of the spouses had passed. And the hardest thing for me in this beyond all the work that goes on in the background, which we’ll unpack as we move forward, is the emotional connection that I personally had. Never mind what the family’s going through, but the emotional connection that I have with the family that I’ve been working with because I’ve been working with him and her since, I believe, 2007-2008, and here we are, 2025.

And that’s a long time to build a relationship, a bond, get to know each other and been to many of our SHP educational events, been to many of our SHP what we call I don’t want to say fun events because that’s not the right word, but client events to where we kind of build our community and really lean in and create experiences for the families that we work with. And it’s just hard to deal with that and unpack that and see that finality in that situation and then beyond that, trying to help that spouse that is left behind. So, that’s really the purpose of the show. It kind of weighs on Laura and I because, like I said, sadly, we’ve been going through this a lot and you don’t realize, you do realize, but maybe the listeners don’t realize how much work goes into this, how much work goes into the preparation and what you need to be doing ahead of time, and then as this all unfolds, what you need to be doing along the way.

So, that’s really where we want to jump in today, is where do we start, right? What do you think is the best way to kind of build this path going forward for people that are obviously inevitably going to go through this?

Laura Russo: Yeah, that’s a great question and I 100% agree. I think the hardest part for us, and we’re seeing, and unfortunately more, is that our clients, we’ve had quite a few people who have passed, and they’re our friends. They’re like our family too and it’s difficult. So, what really spurred us on here was realizing there’s not a lot of resources, and there’s not a lot out there for what to do before someone passes. How can we prep for that? How can we have these hard conversations? So, that’s something that is really close to our hearts because if we can help anyone prepare for probably one of the hardest seasons of their lives, that’s going to be something that’s so valuable and so important. So, we want to really just unpack what can we do ahead of time, what can we do to really prepare ourselves for the hard season, I guess you could say.

Keith Ellis: Yeah. And it’s interesting because I got an email from a client right before we came in here, really, literally. And it wasn’t about him or his spouse because they’re in their early 60s. You never know, though. But it’s more about his dad and what’s going to happen now that he’s 95. They’re reviewing the trust. They have questions on the trust. They want to make sure all their ducks are in a row, everything like that. And that is important. And I think the first thing that people need to do, and I’ve seen this and whether it’s right or wrong, but typically what I see is when a family comes in, one spouse has a general interest in finance and the other spouse really doesn’t. Is that fair to say?

Laura Russo: Oh, definitely.

Keith Ellis: It’s very often. It’s very rare, rather, that you see both spouses loving every aspect of finance, right? So, to me, I think the first thing, and you made some great notes here, is education, making sure that the spouse that really isn’t as involved, I guess, in the finances knows.

Laura Russo: Yeah, definitely.

Keith Ellis: Does that make sense?

Laura Russo: Definitely. Yeah.

Keith Ellis: And make sure they know what the passcodes are, where everything is. And that’s why a lot of the families that work with us, they use us for that resource, right? They say, “Hey, Keith and his team, Laura and her team, they know everything. They know our trust. They know our life insurance. They know our beneficiaries. They know our children a lot of the times.” So, we’re able to help them navigate when that time comes. But for those that don’t have a resource like us or an advisor that they’re working with that does it, that looks at everything holistically and is able to help on this part of the process as well, that’s something that you’re really going to want to work with that spouse that isn’t as versed in this method or in this area as you.

Laura Russo: Yeah. And I think that hits on a really important point, is that we always say try to avoid the trap of one person being in charge. And I make the joke but it’s true. Listen, I don’t love cooking all the time, but I still have to cook to eat, you know? So, it’s like we can’t always do the things that we love. There are certain things in life that are a necessity. Every family is different, but typically we see a lot of times where maybe the husband’s been in charge of the finances and then typically men are the first ones to pass away. I’m sorry, Keith, to tell you that.

Keith Ellis: Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right.

Laura Russo: You’re a ticking time bomb, buddy.

Keith Ellis: Yeah. There we go.

Laura Russo: But, you know, my husband and I, we sit down with him and I say, “Listen, if something happens to me,” I always say, “Hey, if you get remarried, I’ll kill you. I’ll come back and I’ll kill you.” No, I’m totally kidding. But I am only partially kidding there.

Keith Ellis: Sleep with one eye open.

Laura Russo: Yeah, sleep with one eye open. That’s what you get for marrying a Spanish woman. But the truth of the matter is, we do. We have these conversations, and we’re a younger family. We have a little one so those conversations are important. But as we get older, our needs are different. Someone who is retired wants to have certain areas that are covered and make sure that income is replaced, that if something happens while Spouse 1 who passes away, their Social Security or their pensions might go away too.

Keith Ellis: Correct.

Laura Russo: So, there are so many moving pieces, and those open lines of communications are important. Even just sitting down, and we have in my house tons of tools that I have no idea what any of them really do, but my husband’s like, “Listen, if something happens to me, please don’t give these away to so-and-so. This is what this is worth. This is what that’s worth.” And there are people who have stamp collections, coin collections, gun collections, everything. So, don’t be afraid to help that person that might be the one receiving everything understand the value of things. And it’s like it gets down to the nitty gritty, where you can get into details, if there are certain jewelry they want to make sure that you pass on to a niece or…

Keith Ellis: A certain individual.

Laura Russo: Yeah, exactly. Like these conversations are important. And it helps just to mentally prepare, and it might be on the back burner, but when something does happen, you’ll be prepared to know what their wishes were.

Keith Ellis: And I think it’s interesting because when we build a plan here at SHP for folks, like you said earlier, obviously both spouses passing at the same time is extremely, extremely rare. I would say almost doesn’t happen, but I mean…

Laura Russo: I don’t think I’ve ever seen it here, but.

Keith Ellis: Yes.

Laura Russo: Don’t go skydiving together.

Keith Ellis: So, one of the things we do look at, obviously, is like you said, if they’re both collecting Social Security, you lose a Social Security, how’s the impact if they’re collecting a pension? And we want to run the scenario to give the peace of mind to know that if the wife passes first, here’s what the outlook looks like for the husband and vice versa. If the husband passes first, here’s the outlook for the wife just so then they know and they have peace of mind because they don’t know when it’s going to happen, right, but they know it is going to happen. So, we want to make sure that they have peace of mind and know that they’re not leaving behind a mess or an awful situation for the one that they’ve been with for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. You know what I mean?

Laura Russo: Yeah, definitely.

Keith Ellis: And I think another thing that folks can do, just like my client who emailed me before we came in, he was reviewing the documents for his father. I think reviewing the documents for yourselves is very important, making sure they’re up to date, making sure they’re up to the current tax code, making sure they’re up with the new law passages. Whether it’s here in Massachusetts or whether it’s federally, there’s been some laws that have passed that will impact how wealth is transferred, right? And whether it’s spouse-to-spouse or intergenerational, you want to make sure that your documents are up to date, that they’re relevant. And I think one of the biggest mistakes I see is people that have a trust and then never fund the trust.

So, it’s like you bought a car and it’s sitting in the dealership parking lot. You’ve never driven it off a lot. You know what I mean? So, you’ve created this powerful vehicle, depending on what type of trust it is or what you’re trying to accomplish, and now you have this entity but nothing has ever been put into that entity. And a lot of times people don’t know. And I’ve spoken with attorneys or heard attorneys speak that never really tell the couple that they actually have to fund the trust. They have to go through this additional step. They have to go through this process of moving assets into the trust one way or another, so then they get the benefit. So, I think that’s obviously a very underserved area is while you’re alive, making sure your ducks are in a row and continually going back and checking to make sure that everything’s okay.

Laura Russo: Yeah, 100%. And this is actually a little bit where my background is. And we’ve done a lot of work here at SHP to make sure that our clients have all of their ducks in a row, and that’s part of our review process standard. Every single time our planning team is helping to prep for some of our meetings, they’re going in and they’re looking at every account and they’re saying, “Okay. Is the trust the owner or the beneficiary or the IRAs, the beneficiary is correct?” And if you have a more sophisticated trust where maybe it’s split into two different types of trust, is it funded correctly? And I think you hit the nail on the head, honestly. So many people out there, you just spent so much money on this trust and then, well, congratulations. If you don’t fund it, it’s the world’s most expensive paperweight.

Keith Ellis: Yes, exactly.

Laura Russo: So, we want to make sure that you’re implementing and utilizing. And it sounds more daunting than it really is. And if you have a team behind you like what we do, we’ll make sure that they are funded correctly. And sometimes it’s as simple as, “Hey, could you take a look at my beneficiaries, make sure they look all right?” Let’s say we happen to catch one that’s not, “Hey, here’s the paperwork to help you do this. Here’s the paperwork that we can help submit.” So, I think what I’m alluding to here is making sure you have a team behind you and a financial advisor behind you that’s dangerous in the game. Now, we’re not attorneys. We don’t make any type of legal recommendations, but we’re dangerous enough in the game to be able to know what we’re doing.

Keith Ellis: And we work side by side with the attorneys that we work with, your attorneys, to make sure that everything is funded correctly. And to kind of build off that, I think another avenue or aspect that people can do while they’re alive is building that support system.

Laura Russo: Yeah.

Keith Ellis: Right? So, it’s like, okay, something happens to mom. Dad’s obviously in a state. Or something happens to dad. Mom’s in a state of grief. Who do we have around us to help guide so then bad decisions aren’t made? Because unfortunately, that does happen, right? What I usually recommend and we don’t have to get into the numbers when I sit down with families and do this is, look, you’ve created this trust. It’s probably important for you to inform your kids or your beneficiaries, nieces, nephews, whoever, family members, whoever, that you’ve, one, created this trust, right? So, you’ve created this powerful document that has all these wonderful benefits. It’s funded, right? And it’s going to do X, Y, and Z. I think it’s important to bring the kids and educate them on this so then when that time comes, they don’t make mistakes, right?

So, it’s like not only bringing your kids into the situation. You don’t have to give them numbers. You don’t have to tell them about your finances. You don’t have to tell them about your net worth. You don’t have to tell them about your IRAs, 401(k)s, non-qualified accounts, whatever it is. You just have to talk to them more about the mechanics.

Laura Russo: Yeah, exactly.

Keith Ellis: Because once something is done, it can’t be undone, right? So, you want to make sure that they don’t make any mistakes. A lot of times, I say this to the families I work with and I say, “What are you talking about? They’re just going to call you.” And I said, “That’s perfect.” You know what I mean? That’s what we want to have happen because then we can work with your attorney, we can work with our attorneys, we can work with what’s called the settlement attorney, and it takes time. Settlement usually takes nine plus months to get through this process. And it’s a bear. It’s a lot of work. And I don’t think people realize the amount of work that goes into taking care of an estate or even half of an estate. So, that’s why it’s important to bring people up to speed as to what you have.

Laura Russo: Yeah. And I love that. And I think it’s hard for some people. We understand that because as a mom and dad, let’s say with the next generation, you might want to have some level of privacy with your financial status wherever you’re at. But I do think it’s important at some point to start bringing your children in and having those conversations with them, because not only will they be able to feel more comfortable and confident, and they’re most likely, from my experience, going to be the ones that are definitely hands in the pot and figuring things out, but it’s allowing them to also learn and giving them opportunity to be able to help manage and learn the wealth that eventually they’ll likely be the ones inheriting as well. So, I think that’s a great point, Keith. Bringing your kids on is a huge piece of the puzzle, and whatever the comfort level is for your family, it doesn’t have to be full disclosure, here’s everything we have. Some families have that.

And, personally, I think that’s a great way for them to be able, again, step into these shoes to help make sure in this situation if dad passes away, mom has support behind her and has the people that she trust, obviously her kids that can help guide that ship a little bit too.

Keith Ellis: I think what you said earlier about finding, you know, naming beneficiaries and certain things, or whether it’s a lot of people have collectibles, jewelry, it’s important to have guidance and really be specific as well. You know what I mean? You want to make sure that your wishes are followed through upon. And as we start to look at if something happens, like I said, to one spouse and the amount of work that goes in, as I said, it takes about nine plus months. Sometimes we have to ask for extensions because it takes so long really to go through this process. That’s why it’s important, in my opinion, to align yourself, whether it’s your attorney. Make sure your attorney does estate settlement, and if they don’t do estate settlement, ask that attorney, the attorney that you work with, “Okay, you don’t do estate settlement,” because I know some attorneys don’t even…

Laura Russo: A lot of them don’t.

Keith Ellis: They don’t want to do it.

Laura Russo: The ones that draft them, a lot of them don’t.

Keith Ellis: A lot of them aren’t going to help you. That’s, I think, another big misconception is say, “Hey, look, this attorney drafted my documents. If something happens, I’m going to call them.” Well, yeah, I mean, it’s good for them to know because they might have to make changes in the documents, but that’s kind of where they stop.

Laura Russo: Yeah.

Keith Ellis: Right? And then you’re stuck sitting there. You’re stuck saying, “Well, aren’t you going to help me?” “Well, no, my job was to draft the documents. I don’t execute the back end.”

Laura Russo: Yeah. It’s kind of like when you buy a car, you deal with the front office, the service or the dealership. You buy the car. They know everything about it. They help you get all of the features understood. But then when it comes to the actual processing of the trust, that’s not their specialty. Their specialty is drafting it. The ones that are actually executing it, it’s a much different ball game. So, you go to the service department in that end. So, that’s a great point is it’s a big misconception. Most people say, “Well, why didn’t you tell me ahead of time that you weren’t going to be the one administering my trust?”

Keith Ellis: And it’s at a time of grief again.

Laura Russo: Yeah. A lot of emotion.

Keith Ellis: I’ve seen folks, unfortunately, get upset with some attorneys because it’s not like they don’t want to do it.

Laura Russo: It’s just that’s not their wheelhouse.

Keith Ellis: It’s just not their specialty. So, just like Elder Law, folks that focus on Medicaid planning, they might not do divorce, which is good because you don’t want that, right?

Laura Russo: Stay in your lane.

Keith Ellis: Stay in your lane. So, that’s why it’s important to have, like we’ve been saying, a team that looks at it and has a holistic approach. And one of the things that we do, and we have aligned with our estate settlement attorneys, we have a few that we work with here locally, some up on the North Shore as well, that we’ve had to unfortunately tap in these times of need. And it’s been a very seamless process in a very interrupted time, I guess. You know what I mean?

Laura Russo: Yeah, definitely. And you want to be able to feel confident in the people you’re working with and trust them. And we take that extremely seriously. So, the people that we work with, we make sure that they’re actually giving our clients top service. And if they’re not, we’re not going to work with them again. So, having that confidence and the assurance that the team behind you knows what they’re doing so that you can be able to grieve and to move on is huge.

Keith Ellis: Some other things to consider, some other things to look at. Again, make sure you have a will. Make sure you have a trust. Make sure it’s up to date. Make sure your beneficiaries are correct and the trust is funded. Go through each of your accounts. And this is something that we do, like you said, ongoing as families come in and visit with us every six months or every year or ongoing. I mean, I have a client that reaches out to me almost on a quarterly basis, and I’m not even kidding, just to check. And I’m like, “Hey, nothing’s changed. Your beneficiary is the same. We haven’t signed any new documents.” But he and his family as they age, they’re just looking for that peace of mind to make sure that everything is okay. So, as we start to kind of wind down here, any kind of final thoughts or any other ideas or strategies you want to add?

Laura Russo: So, I would say one of the biggest keys for all of this to be successful is be organized. Get ahead of it. My first job out of college, I was in estate administration. I was a paralegal. And as a paralegal, my billing rate was $150 an hour, just as a paralegal. And that was a long time ago, so who knows what they are now. But sometimes I’d have families come in and drop off a huge bin of just paperwork for me to file and shuffle. So, you’re paying someone $150 an hour just to organize your paperwork? That’s crazy. You can get ahead of that. And some of the families that I see that are the most successful have a binder in place. Now, if you have an estate plan, you should already have a binder that came with your estate plan.

But having up-to-date statements for all of your accounts in one spot that’s easy access, having your passwords available to your spouse or to whoever the person that’s going to be coming up saying, “Hey, this is where all my passwords are stored. Hey, you have access to my phone, full disclosure here,” especially in a spousal situation, so that if you have your password saved online with a safe, secure password manager, make sure that your spouse and the next person has access to that information. Half the battle is like, can you imagine grieving and then trying to guess someone’s password over and over again? That’s absolutely just not what you want someone who’s already hurting to have to go through.

So, be organized. Do what you can, create a binder, and sit down together and do it together. Sit down and take time to say, “Hey, I know this isn’t the most glamorous project. I know this isn’t the most fun, but it’s so important for us to sit down. Let’s get all of our statements together. Let’s put IRA statements together, non-qualified statements together, life insurance policies, all of it.” Create a little hub, put it in a secure, fireproof, safe deposit box, whatever it is that’s right for you guys, but having that few steps ahead where you’ve really created an organized plan is huge. And we do all of this online too, with our planning, with our software. So, utilize your financial. At SHP, we always say, “Hey, bring us your tax returns. We have your tax doc, your trust documents on file. We have everything in a secure file upload that’s accessible to the next person and we’ll go through all of those steps together.”

Keith Ellis: Yeah. And if you don’t have that, then also I would recommend to build on that. Bring your children into that so they know where to find everything as well. Again, because they’re going to be helping, most likely, that spouse that is left behind. So, you want them to have a little bit more hands-on role through this process. A couple of other things that I would recommend, make sure you’re meeting ongoing with your advisor or your legal team. Like I said, make sure I would actually challenge and say as well, make sure your advisor knows how to do this or has some guidance that can help you, because a lot of the a lot of this comes back to not only your state settlement attorney, but your financial, not necessarily the attorney that wrote your documents unless they do both, like I was saying earlier, but it’s going to be your estate settlement attorney and your financial advisor working hand-in-glove together to make sure that you have the best outcome.

And like I said, it is a long, tedious process for both the estate settlement attorney and believe it or not, the advisor as well, right? And a lot of times, advisors don’t have the team to be able to handle this. It’s just a lot of work. So, make sure that you align yourself, if you are working with an advisor, with an advisor that can help with the estate settlement piece. And then the final thing for me is, and this is kind of a little bit specific, I guess, is a lot of times clients maybe they have a pension and it dies with them, right? Or maybe they have an idea that they want to leave money behind, tax efficient. They use life insurance to do so because life insurance is a great wealth transfer vehicle. It’s tax free if it’s set up correctly to a spouse or tax free to the next generation.

And you can use what’s called leverage. You’re paying a little bit of money for a lot larger death benefit. But sometimes these policies that were written years ago had promises of interest rates from years ago. Does that make sense? And when the individual bought them, they thought everything looked good. And then when we start to dig in or pull back the curtain, these policies are set to expire or these policies are going to need to be funded at a higher premium or curve balls coming around the corner. What we recommend, if you haven’t done this, and we do this every 3 to 5 years on any life insurance policies that our clients have, whether we’re the advisor or not, is do what’s called an inforce illustration.

And what that means is it’s a policy that’s in force, meaning it’s active, and the illustration is what the insurance company will provide you. It’s a projection of how healthy this policy is. Because you don’t want any curveballs. Like I said, if you are lucky enough to get a pension, which not many people are, depending on which option you chose, if you chose the option where the pension dies with you and your spouse gets nothing, which sometimes we see, and then there’s the life insurance policy on the side to support that when that time comes and that policy isn’t healthy, you pass and that policy is not going to last, well, now you’ve just kind of defeated the purpose of the plan. Does that make sense?

Laura Russo: Right.

Keith Ellis: So, I always recommend if you have insurance, if it’s guaranteed, you’re good, but a lot of times you’re good. Again, I still recommend doing an inforce illustration, but if it’s any way variable, what we call universal, then I would definitely recommend what’s called an inforce illustration to make sure your policy is going to last and make sure it’s beneficiary correctly.

Laura Russo: Oh, that’s so good, Keith. And there are so many pitfalls that people fall into. Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe you’re putting too much money into one, and now you’re taking away some of the tax efficiency of it. Or maybe you can leverage it and use it in your estate plan and use it to completely get out of your estate altogether. So, making sure that you have people who know what they’re looking at review it is huge and running those inforce illustration is a game changer.

Keith Ellis: Yeah. So, again, not the best topic, not the most fun topic obviously, but.

Laura Russo: No, but needed.

Keith Ellis: Needed. And unfortunately, sadly, we’ve been dealing with it a lot in our practice recently. And while it is rewarding to be able to help the spouse, it’s sad to lose friends. You know what I mean? And that’s really what it is. So, if you have any questions or want any more information on this or our holistic financial planning process, again, here at SHP, we focus on everything from income planning, investment planning, tax efficiency, health care strategies as well as estate planning. And that’s where we kind of dove in a little bit here today. It’s kind of that holistic financial approach. And what we try to do is congregate or put all the assets so a client can see their whole situation, their whole net worth, their whole estate plan all in one place.

And what it allows us to do is kind of track that as the market goes up, market goes down, value of home goes up, the value of home goes down so we can continually plan and look forward for our clients to make sure that not only is the husband and wife in a great situation, kids, grandkids, grandkids, grandkids are in a great situation and trying to create what we call that intergenerational wealth. So, if you want any more information on SHP Financial, visit our website, SHPFinancial.com. Again, that’s SHPFinancial.com. And we thank you all for listening and we look forward to seeing you next time right here on the Retirement Roadmap.