By Pattie Mihalik

newsgirl@comcast.net

What are you doing as you read this?

Perhaps you’re sitting there enjoying a cup of coffee while you read the newspaper.

Perhaps you’re reading the paper before you rush off somewhere.

Before you do anything else, I have a strong recommendation:

If you own a bank account, a stock, a retirement account, a savings program of any kind or an insurance policy, I urge you to take the time right now to check your listed beneficiaries.

The first and most important question is did you list a beneficiary?

According to a bank director of finance and estate planning, the biggest mistake she sees is that people fail to list a current beneficiary.

“This doesn’t just happen every now and then. It is so maddening common,” the financial expert said,

“Maybe people think they aren’t going to die yet so they never get around to detailing where they want their money to go. Or, maybe they just simply forget to do it.”

Her first advice for anyone, regardless of whether they have an estate of a few dollars or much more, is to check your accounts to make sure you have named as beneficiary the person you want to inherit what you have.

A friend just discovered her mother passed away without remembering to update her beneficiaries after a bitter divorce. Her ex-husband’s name was still listed as beneficiary. When he, too, passed away quite expectantly, the family discovered he had left everything to his girlfriend.

You can imagine the hurt and bad feelings that generated.

As the saying goes, the mother is no doubt turning over in her grave at the thought of having her estate go to her ex-husband’s girlfriend instead of her children.

And it all could have been avoided if she had remembered to list current beneficiaries.

When my beloved sister died, she had my father listed as beneficiary. But he had passed away 14 years before she did.

Fourteen years is a long time not to get around to doing something. But truth be told, who among us thinks of updating beneficiaries when we are still in our 40s.

Mary Ann was smart and extremely well organized. Yet, that important detail of updating her beneficiary escaped her attention. When an ex-boyfriend fraudulently filed suit for her estate claiming a common law marriage, the judge awarded him money my sister never wanted him to have.

Again, it was the simple act of updating beneficiaries that would have prevented that injustice.

The estate planning expert said she offers to go over wills with clients, making sure all documents list the desired beneficiaries.

“One woman with three adult children wanted all three to inherit her assets equally. But she had only her son’s name on her accounts.

“She thought it was OK because her son would know when she passed away all her assets were supposed to be shared. She was shocked when I told her she was essentially cutting two of her children out of their inheritance because her son would be the sole legal heir,” she said.

That was one big problem avoided, thanks to the diligence of the mother who double-checked with an expert to make sure her estate papers were done properly.

I attended an estate planning seminar where a lawyer told other horror stories about the pitfall of not being specific in wills.

One woman with $1.2 million in assets was killed in an auto accident while her son was a freshman in college. Because the will said he was to inherit everything upon the passing of his mother, he had immediate access to all the money.

According to the lawyer, the young man dropped out of college and went on a wild spending spree, thinking only of the present, not of his future.

“What would have saved him would have been if the mother had done s trust detailing how the money would be doled out over the years,” said the lawyer.

If we think the time to pay attention to wills and beneficiary forms is when we are old, stories like that should have us thinking twice.

I’m fond of saying I’m a newspaper person who believes in the adage, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

In other words, don’t assume anything. Check everything.

Yet, I almost got caught in the “no beneficiary” trap. After I attended those financial seminars it led me to checking beneficiary forms. I took the added step of asking financial institutes to mail me a copy of the form.

One stock company said I never filled out a beneficiary form. I certainly did. I had it notarized and mailed it in. What I didn’t do is make sure it arrived. I assumed.

Big mistake — one that I fortunately caught in time. It taught me a lesson about assuming.

If all this is old news for you — if you are sure your estate plan says what you want it to say and that you have a beneficiary listed on all your accounts, good for you.

But if that’s something you were going to get around to doing someday, why not do it now.

No one wants your ex-husband’s girlfriend spending the money it took you so long to save.

And no one wants a grieving adult child having to handle the extra grief of costly estate mistakes.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.