My wife’s parents are in their upper 70s. They do not want to discuss their estate plan with me, which is fine. However, I try to drop hints to get them to at least think about it. Last week, my mother-in-law said they did not have Health Care Proxies because if she was in the hospital, the doctor would be able to talk to my father-in-law and he could make decisions for her.
While this is technically true, it does not provide for the instance where they are both incapacitated or in the hospital at the same time as a result of an accident. Again, the odds of this happening are low. However, it is not unheard of.
Although we cannot plan for every occurrence, we can take reasonable steps to make sure we are prepared for the things that are easy to solve. Preparing a Health Care Proxy with both initial Health Care Agents and Successors is an easy step to making sure you have designated someone to make medical decisions on your behalf in the event you can not make them on your own.