[DemolitionRed]

We had a friend who was badly injured and later died in a motorbike accident. His long term live in girlfriend wasn’t recognized as his next of kin because his family happened not to like her. So whilst he lay in a coma, she wasn’t allowed to visit him and when he died, she wasn’t allowed to his funeral. She had a long legal battle to keep the home they had built together and she wasn’t allowed access to his bank account to help pay the mounting debts.
If she’d been married, then she would have automatically been his next of kin and none of that sorry state of affairs would have happened.