Life insurance payouts and inheritance?
1st off, sorry for the loss of your father. The other posters are pros in regards to insurance, since they make a living selling it, so they know what they are talking about. I am adding this only from personal experience, since both of my parents and my husband's parents have been gone in a period of 8 to 13 years. The life insurance will be pretty easy and settled most likely w/in 30 days on average. Hopefully your father when he changed the beneficiaries has made all 7 of his children "equal" in the distribution. So if for instance, the policy was for $100,000, each child once they verify their identity, would each get a check in their name for $14,285.71. But the estate depending on what kind of assets he had prior to his death could be a long term process to finalize. In our cases, it is hard to remember, but I believe it took anywhere from a year or 2 to close out the estates. Your sister is going to go through a trying process of being the executor, since she will have to pay debts your father owed and also may have to sell assets so that it can be distributed per your father's last wishes. I am hoping that your father also changed his will to reflect that all assets are distributed equally. But sometimes parents don't, and this will create problems with any of your siblings why someone gets more than someone else. There is also could be some issues with your mother, since at the time of his death, they were not "officially" divorced, and she might contest it. I don't know how long your parents were married, but for her to move, quit her job and take care of him, even after she filed for divorce, could have just stated, let the 7 kids take care of him and walked away. As a daughter who took care of my father during the last 2 weeks of his life, it was very stressful and between myself and other family members, had to coordinate our time with jobs to accomplish this. I must warn you, put aside the financial issues, but the biggest problem you may have is that depending how the insurance and estate is finalized, that many families are torn apart fighting and taking sides. It is not uncommon after an ordeal like this, that many siblings will stop talking to each other. Hopefully, you will all remain family when this is done. good luck
Is getting married on dec 31 a bad idea?
Maybe, maybe not for tax purposes. You will be married for tax purposes as soon as you say I do so if you have a real choice between December 31 and January 1, plan wisely, If there is a large disparity between your incomes, it would be advantageous to get married because the high tax rate income would be diluted by the low tax rate income. If you are fairly equal or one itemizes and the other doesn't or one will lose out on earned income credit, it will probably be best to wait. Use Form 1040-ES to figure it both ways then decide.
When should a person typically consider buying life insurance?
when they have an "insureable interest" ie a dependant child spouse , parent or other OR debts that would not be covered upon death. typically required for a family situation $$ for final expenses $$ for kids education $$ for debts $$ for income replacement