No, it's not right to pretend to be someone else

Alice has been caring for her ailing father for many years. Her father has been a widower for almost 30 years and lived alone in an assisted living apartment for much of that time. Alice's care involved helping him find and get settled in his apartment, visiting him regularly, and as his health deteriorated, she found a home care aid to pay him regular visits. She also helped manage his finances.

Now in his 90s and legally blind, Alice's father has needed more care and more help with paying bills, filing taxes and generally getting around. One of the areas that Alice writes that she dreads talking to him about is what his wishes are after he dies. Nevertheless, she persists.

Alice has spoken to her father about what he would like for a funeral and service, whether he would like to be cremated and where he would like to be buried. Almost everything seemed settled, when on one visit her father mentioned to her that he had a small life insurance policy she had never heard about before. In his desk, he had a handwritten note with the name of the government agency which he believed held the policy along with his identification number.

He had no recollection and there was no notation of how much the life insurance policy was for, but he wanted Alice to check.

Alice called, and an agent got on the line. Alice told the agent what she was after and gave him her father's identification information. She was told that there was no record of her having her father's power of attorney and that they could not release the information without his permission. She would have to request forms from the agency that she could fill out and return establishing that she did have power of attorney and then she could call and get the information.

"That's going to take more time," writes Alice, observing that all she wants to do is confirm the policy and the amount, not to try to cash it in. "I could easily have my husband call and say he was my father since we have all the necessary information. They would never know."

Alice wants to know if it would be wrong to try this tactic to save time getting the information her father wants.

Of course, it would be wrong. Alice may fear that her father's health is failing enough that by the time she went through the proper steps and got the information, her father would no longer be around, but engaging in fraud for the sake of expediency is never a good idea.

The right thing is for Alice to file whatever forms she needs to be able to access the information. She's already doing the right thing by providing her father with love and support as it becomes more challenging for him to do it for himself. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 

(c) 2020 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.