Hello,
My husband has advanced bowel cancer with multiple metastases in lungs, liver, peritoneum, lymph and with some bone involvement. He's been told it may be a rare aggressive cancer, but awaits a colonoscopy and biopsy to determine this and any potential treatment. We've had no prognosis yet, but expect bad news. We've already been told it's not curable.
This has all happened so suddenly and with limited time on our hands, are trying to get everything in place for the future regarding pensions, cars, life insurance etc. We're a married couple and bank accounts are all in joint names. I'm named in his pensions, so am fairly confident that side of our finances is taken care of. The phone/internet/his mobile and the TV license are in his name, but also fairly minor and hopefully can be sorted out when need be. I've also read that Power of Attorney can take up to 6 months to process. Gov.uk website stated 20 weeks, and we just simply may not have that long.
The main things I'm concerned about are:
1) The cars - they are both in his name and so is the car tax/insurance. I read that someone who didn't have POA struggled with the insurance company and couldn't drive for a couple of months after her husband's death while it was being resolved. This would be a problem for us, living rural with limited public transport. Is it wise to have him change the cars to be registered in my name, so we can avoid this problem?
2) Making health decisions on his behalf if he were to become incapacitated. I'm not yet fully aware of his wishes in terms of DNR and I'm not even sure about end of life care options, though my mind races to issues such as pain relief that may mean he is not conscious and I saw something the other day about some people choosing not to be hydrated when their time is nearly up, so issues like that I need to ascertain with him. Without POA, will I be able to represent my husband's wishes at that time, or will this mean Drs decide?
Sorry, I realise these are probably silly questions, but the wind has been taken out of my sails and I almost can't think. Trying to find the right answer on Google or the various cancer websites also feels a challenge.
I would be grateful for any advice and also if there is anything I may have missed that you feel is relevant, please do share.
Thank you.
