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When a husband dies, a widow often struggles not only with personal pain but also with financial frustrations. Gaining access to utility, credit card or bank accounts can take months if a wife is not listed as the primary holder.
I hear from widows all the time who want to warn couples to plan better than they did.When a spouse dies, "you’re overwhelmed," says Corrine Jacobson, a Fort Worth widow who teaches other widows how to cope. "Most women don’t even know how much money they have."When Nancy Gilbert’s husband died, she learned that he had a credit card he used only to pay their monthly bill to AOL. Gilbert, of Arlington, says the reason for this remains "a mystery to me."When she got a letter that she had missed a $15 payment, she noticed that the effective annual interest rate on the card had jumped to 84 percent. She called the bank, but nobody would talk to her because she wasn’t the primary holder of the card. She explained that she had asked for a name change but that it had never gone through."My name was on the account, but because it was under his Social Security number, he was the primary," she says. "They insisted on talking to him. But I told them, 'He died.’ "Lesson learned: "Persevere," she says. "As a widow, you need to move quickly to take control. If you don’t, the credit card companies will run all over you."After her husband died, Ruby Ray of Arlington tried to refinance her manufactured home through her mortgage company. She wanted to lower her payments."Their attitude was, 'You signed while your husband is alive, and that’s just the way it is.’ "She remembers that the treatment by uncaring strangers made it the toughest time of her life.Lesson learned: List both spouses as primary holders of all major loans and investments."If I had known he was going to die, I would have had everything changed from his name to mine," she said.Even after her husband died, Olive Pearson of Fort Worth was visited by ghosts of his old debt. Only the debt wasn’t really his, and the ghost was a harassing bill collector who kept calling and demanding payment.She told him, "My husband never owed anybody." But he kept calling, warning her, yelling at her.Lesson learned: When the problem is too difficult, turn to others for help.In this case, Pearson’s daughter intervened and talked to someone else at the collection agency. They learned that the debtor was someone else with the same name. Julia Brewer of Bedford thought her husband’s pension and medical insurance would take care of her after he was gone. That was the deal her husband made with his former employer, Swift & Co. But when she became a widow, the company denied her claim."They were determined not to cover my insurance," she recalls. But she pestered them relentlessly.Lesson learned: Good record-keeping can make all the difference."I’m getting my pension and I’m covered by health insurance," she said. "But it was just sheer determination that got it. If I had not kept all those papers, I’d be up a creek without a paddle."
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