5 Financial Lessons from Celebrity Deaths

Unless you’ve been living under a rock without access to radio, TV, the internet, Twitter, or Facebook for the last week you know that several celebrities have passed away from various causes.
As a society we’ve lost TV pitchman Billy Mays (heart disease), entertainer Michael Jackson (who knows), actress Farrah Fawcett (cancer), entertainer Ed McMahon (no formal reason given), and comedian Fred Travalena (cancer).
Death isn’t a fun topic, but I think there are some lessons to be learned from these celebrity deaths. Here’s a list to start with.

5 Financial Lessons from Celebrity Deaths

1. Money isn’t everything. All the money in the world doesn’t matter. All five of these celebrities made a ton of money during their lifetimes. As nice of a lifestyle as they got to live using that money it still did not prevent death. (Hint: nothing prevents death forever.) The pursuit of money, in the end, is fruitless.

2. If you don’t have your health, you have nothing. Of the five listed above only one, Ed McMahon, likely died of old age. The rest died of some sort of medical issue. Mays and Jackson were just 50 years old. In theory they should have had many more years to live on this earth. All the money in the world can’t stop cancer.

3. Life insurance and health insurance are really important. The likelihood of average folks like you and I having to worry about millions of dollars is slim-to-none. But we may suffer from the same health issues that these celebrities did. Heart disease in America? Check. Cancer? Check.
Now imagine if you didn’t wake up from going to sleep last night. Would your family be covered with a term-life insurance policy on you? If you were diagnosed with cancer today would you have health insurance to cover your treatments? Bottom line: skimping on insurance is not the way to go.

4. Having an estate plan is key. Again, imagine you didn’t wake up this morning. Does your spouse know where the will is? (Do you have a will?) An estate plan maps out for the courts exactly how you want your estate — your belongings and money — handed out. Do you want to give it all to your spouse? Do you want to leave some for the kids? Have you appointed a guardian for the kids?
The Jackson case is a perfect example of this — his mother has won temporary custody of the children and control of the estate. But is that what the will said to do?

5. Get your financial house in order. You can be “rich”, but still severely in debt. There is a significant difference between appearing wealthy and being wealthy. Jackson was $400 million in debt when he died last week. Ed McMahon was in the news a few months back for being on the brink of foreclosure on his mansion. These are two individuals that made millions upon millions of dollars and still were in debt.

Rob Alley, Realtor of The Avery Group at Roy Wheeler
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roballey@roywheeler.com
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