What if something was to happen to me?

[StellaBrillante]

Hi all,

Other than my life assurance, I don?t have any other arrangements in place for DS should anything happen to me. This really worries me as DS is 11, ex-husband has no participation in his life at all and we don?t have any family nearby.
I am taking a look at critical illness and dependant?s pension so I thought I?d post something here and see what other ?single parents? out there have done.
I have contacted a local independent school which is very good, with excellent pastoral care, and a few of DS?s friends go there so the plan is that my life assurance would be plenty to pay for his boarding etc until he finishes school, with hopefully a bit leftover for university too. The grandparents live in Portugal so I would be counting on them to have DS during holidays etc and keep an eye on things.
It may sound a bit ?morbid? to be thinking this way but the last thing I want is for DS to end up with ex who doesn?t want to know, has got no structure in his life and would never provide DS with what he?s got now. At least in this way, DS would be able to retain some sense of normality and be able to get on with his life in an environment that he is familiar to.

Any advice / suggestions? How much insurance and other covers should I take? Has anyone written a ?wish letter? as part of their will? I could ask DS? godmother too but again she is Germany and her partner is totally anti-children / any hassle whatsoever so I don?t believe she would be able to commit to anything.

Thank you x

I just came up with a random figure of £50k for each child if I drop dead. But mum / sister / step-mum are around to have them, although XP has parental responsiblity he doesn't see them and mum said she would take legal action if anyone tried to give the kids to him.

It's all very scary isn't it .

I may have gone slightly overboard with my life insurance as I took ot out for £290k and it's only 1 child. In that sense, he won't have any issues with either paying for the independent school or university and more. However, I haven't got anyone trustworthy to look after him! It's very scary indeed!!!

If you can afford it then £290k is great, I can't imagine how anything would be too much. I might increase mine a little bit in a year or two but wanted to start from somewhere.

£290k sounds like a good amount to cover school fees, university, living expenses, and possibly the deposit on somewhere to live later on. That's a good start. But you really do need to make sure you have a guardian and some kind of trust arrangement set out for him in your will - even if you don't have anyone who would be able to give him a home full-time, there needs to be someone responsible for his welfare and for managing finances until he is old enough. If you don't have one person who could take on the entire responsibility, I think you can nominate two or more people to share it. Grandparents, godmother, good friends? You don't really want to leave it up to the courts to decide if you should die suddenly.

And no, it is not morbid to think about it, just practical. I know only too well that you never know when you will need these things: DH died suddenly four years ago, and luckily we did have wills and life insurance. I am now in the process of sorting out a more detailed will for myself with guardianship and trust arrangements more clearly spelled out.

Thank you both. My thoughts precisely that it'll be hard enough for him to deal with the loss and everything else. Now imagine having nothing in place and ending up with ex. This is not about slagging off ex but he cannot be trusted and has never done anything to show that he's got ds' best interest at heart. Interestingly though, the grandparents from ex's side are very good so putting the life insurance plan in trust and them as trustees. My best friend / ds' godmother lives in Germany and I'd like to put her down as a trustee too but her partner hates children and is very difficult so I don't actually think she would ever live up to the responsibility - maybe not a wise choice of godmother. Then we've got one of ds' closest friends and his parents who are very good and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to step in if there was an emergency. Not only that but friend goes to the independent school that I have in mind (I have already contacted the school to check about admissions proceess and they seemed very accommodating, especially since ds would be coming from grammar school so like to meet their entrance requirements). I think the only thing that I haven't covered is critical ilness.
Does anyone have a 'wish letter' template or guidelines on what to write, please?