At 11:25 a.m., on December 8, 2023, I received a call from my sister. She told me that our father, Ricky Watkins, had unexpectedly passed away in his sleep. He was scheduled to go to the doctor that morning when a family friend found him at home.
I had spent years privately emotionally preparing myself for my father’s death due to his declining health, but when I got the news I still felt an intense wave of pain, sadness, shock, and confusion. I understood that the planning process starts as soon as a person passes away, so I didn’t have the luxury to sit with my grief, recoil into myself, and process my father’s death. I picked up the phone and immediately reported my father’s death to his former employer to start the life insurance claim process.
Growing up as a Black woman from North Carolina, I had a front-row seat to witness the hushed conversations among family members and friends grappling with the daunting task of organizing and paying for a funeral while also navigating the aftermath of managing their loved one’s estate.
Caring.com’s 2024 wills and estate planning survey reports that the number of white Americans with a will decreased by about 3% since 2020, while estate planning among Black Americans increased by roughly 19% since 2020. However, the number of white Americans who have a will or have done estate planning remains higher than that of people of color. According to the survey, 34% of white Americans have wills, compared with 31% of Black Americans and 22% of Hispanic Americans.
My father was a very private person, which meant that my sister and I had to hunt for important documents such as an outdated will and testament dating back to 2009, insurance policies, financial documents, property deeds, and other vital paperwork. This is the stark reality for many people, particularly young people of color, whose families don’t have a plan in place.
Black and Hispanic individuals are notably less likely to pass down an inheritance compared to their white counterparts, reveals the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
Aimee Griffin leads Life & Legacy Counselors, a law firm operating across locations in DC, Maryland, and Virginia with specializations in estate administration and planning. She is also the founder and president of the Association of Black Estate Planning Professionals, Inc. Griffin tells Teen Vogue that when people pass away, their loved ones of course bear the brunt of the impact.
“If you have children, if you have parents, those are the people it's gonna impact, not only when you pass away but when you are incapacitated," Griffin says. “So not having yourself together impacts those other people and that's part of the conversation I try to compel people to have.”
When my father was alive, I consistently pushed him to update his will, having witnessed his struggles to properly manage his sister’s estate. She died 10 months before he did and despite her assurance that she had a life insurance policy, we discovered nothing.
A significant hurdle in this journey is securing funds for funeral, legal, and estate expenses, especially when those who have passed don’t have life insurance or savings. Despite my father's promises that he had a policy, my aunt's death taught me that words don't always translate into action.
A few days after my father's passing, while making arrangements with the funeral home, I reached out to multiple people at my dad’s former employer and MetLife customer service about an insurance policy. However, due to security issues and ongoing paperwork, I couldn't get clear answers, which was frustrating. I asked about the time frame to hear back about the policy and was told it would take four to six weeks, time we didn't have because we had to pay for a viewing at the funeral home. Frustrated, I said, "We don’t have four to six weeks. How can I decide on a service without knowing if a policy exists?"
Seconds passed before the MetLife representative told me she didn’t know what to say. I broke down in tears. This moment so clearly highlighted the flawed nature of the process. How can you honor your loved one's wishes without timely access to crucial information? You can’t. And you will be forced to make some difficult decisions.
Angela Hsiao is a Chinese American attorney specializing in estate planning and the co-founder of Sage Legacy Law LLP, a boutique, women-owned firm based in San Marino, California, in Los Angeles County. Hsiao tells Teen Vogue that after she and her law firm partner, Muky Dai, became mothers, they decided to specialize in the world of estate planning. Similar to Griffin, they quickly recognized that the lack of estate planning in their community was a symptom of a broader systemic issue.
Hsiao notes that discussing death and inheritance is taboo in many Asian cultures and estate planning is rarely addressed. “It is viewed, at best, as mildly distasteful, disrespectful, gaudy, or even greedy, bringing on a bad omen, wishing ill of their elders, or even traitorous to their family,” says Hsiao.
Hsiao adds that for her and Dai, the pandemic underscored the importance of having an estate plan, especially since many of her peers were experiencing major life events in their families. COVID-19 cases and deaths made the need for estate planning and medical-care directives urgent. Roughly one in five Americans had no estate plan in place before they died from COVID, according to a 2022 survey from Caring.com.
Azra Ahmad, a Muslim Pakistani American attorney, who runs a women-led firm Mid-America Law Practice, LLC, in Chesterfield, Missouri, echoed Griffin’s sentiments. “A lot of Muslims feel comfortable coming to me because they don’t have to explain what it means to have a … sharia-compliant estate plan or an estate plan that complies with Islamic law,” Ahmad says.
Hsiao, Ahmad, and Griffin all stress the importance of young people of color learning about estate planning early in adulthood. Griffin recommends teaching financial habits even sooner, starting in childhood.
As I lean into adulthood, I’ve learned that as children we see our parents make mistakes no matter how hard they try to hide them from us. That can be the result of a lack of resources or bad decisions. For my father, it was both. It’s up to us as young adults to either learn from our parents' mistakes or we'll end up mirroring them.
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