Episode 20: Planning for Incapacity with Jonah Bamel and Greg Volk

02/04/19 • 52 min

Estate planning should involve more than simply creating the appropriate documents to address who will receive your property after your death. Modern estate planning also includes some planning for a period of time prior to death, particularly if circumstances arise that a person cannot manage their own property or cannot make health care decisions for themselves. The vast majority of people will die after a period of some incapacity. If that period is short, then there are few problems. But because that period can be months or even years, many people want to make arrangements with respect to their property and health care in case the need arises.

There are three basic documents for planning for the period of incapacity that Jonah Bamel, Greg Volk and Tanya Marsh discuss in this episode: (1) a health care proxy or health care power of attorney; (2) living will or advance directive; and (3) durable power of attorney.

Visit www.deathetseq.com for links to additional resources.

Visit www.deathetseq.com for links to additional resources.

Previous Episode

Episode 19: Discussing Cremation with Barbara Kemmis of CANA

On this week’s episode, I am happy to share with you a conversation that I recently had with Barbara Kemmis, the Executive Director of the Cremation Association of North America, or CANA. Cremation is on the rise in the United States. As Barbara will explain, after it was legalized in a handful of states in the 1870s, it took about a century for the cremation rate to hit 5% in this country. For the past several years, cremation has been a more popular option in the United States than burial, which represents a seismic shift in American disposition practices. Barbara and I will discuss the rising cremation rate, some of the reasons that people have been embracing cremation, and research conducted by CANA regarding correlations between demographic information and the cremation rate. I also ask Barbara about the environmental impacts of cremation and she shares some of the research that CANA has done in that area as well.

To learn more:

Industry Statistics: https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/IndustryStatistics

Roaming/Rooted Blogpost Link: https://www.cremationassociation.org/blogpost/776820/280926/Enhanced-Statistics-Enhance-Your-Business-Success

Link to all posts about stats: https://www.cremationassociation.org/blogpost/776820/The-Cremation-Logs?tag=statistics

Next Episode

Episode 21: Death Care in the Time of COVID 19 with Amy Cunningham

Recorded on April 18, 2020, Brooklyn funeral director Amy Cunningham explains how death care is being handled in New York City a month into the COVID-19 pandemic.