Don't wait to get a will

I spent 20 years in the Navy and during my last three years I had a collateral duty of having to inform families their sailor had died. This was a job I shared with a few other people, so I had to give the bad news only four times. Two of these had unusual circumstances surrounding the will.
The first was a young man who was married but his family didn't know about the marriage. He was in training and his wife had yet to join him. She lived near his family and was friends with them. They saw each other often.
Upon his death, I informed first his wife and immediately afterwards his mother. The first few days their world is understandably upsidedown. As a normalcy returns to their lives we get involved in the life insurance, will, burial, etc. This young man did everything by the book and his will was updated immediately following his justice of the peace marriage. This didn't go over very well with the mother, who only six months earlier had seen her son off when he joined the military. Now, instead of the mother making the funeral/burial decisions, it was now the new wife, herself just barely out of her teens. Additionally, for the wife to receive all the life insurance was just too much for the mother. I understand they quite speaking soon afterwards.
The second interesting case was a man almost finished with a 20 year career who had passed. He had never updated his paperwork and his wife was left out in the cold and his ex-wife received his estate. The last I heard his wife was going to contest the will.
The lesson learned in the second case is to take care of your loved ones when you can. Death often comes unexpectedly and I'm quite certain the deceased didn't want his wife to have to go through all the legal hassles while at the same time she is mourning.