Your Digital Estate Plan: The Importance of Organizing your Digital Assets

Do your family members know what online accounts you have? Do they know how to handle them in case something were to happen to you?
 
More than likely, people don’t advertise to others about what digital assets they have or how those assets should be handled if something were to happen to them.
 
But dealing with digital assets after someone dies is becoming a challenge for families and loved ones. Family members can't just rifle through a desk anymore to find the accounts and assets because they’re mostly found online.  And back in the days, pictures were carefully placed in photo albums and stored on bookshelves and coffee tables. But now, I’m sure most of you have photos stored on your smartphones, computer, or cloud storage.
 
Today, it’s becoming more important and necessary to plan ahead for access to your digital property (ie. passwords, online accounts, and electronically-stored information) and leave clearer instructions for your family members in your estate plan to handle your digital assets.
 
By creating a proper digital estate plan, you can help your family:

• Locate your online accounts
• Have full access to your digital assets
• Keep administration costs down
• Avoid online identity theft
• Determine if your digital property has any financial value that needs to be reported and submitted to probate
• Distribute or transfer any digital assets to the appropriate persons
• Ensure that no valuable digital asset is overlooked

Here are some steps to take to get started on your digital estate plan:

1. Make a list of your accounts
   1. Include your login ID and password and how to get into your digital assets. It would do no good if you have a list of accounts, but no instructions on how to access them. Keep in mind that allowing anybody to log into your account could be a violation of the terms of service, but an executor acting in the best interests of the estate and as per the terms of your will is unlikely to run into problems.
   2. Keep it separate from your Will. Wills that go to probate become public record.
   3. Store this inventory list in a safe, private and secure location such as an online service, safe-deposit box, CD or flash drive.
   4. Make sure to keep it updated.
   5. Just like being able to locate your actual physical documents, your executor/trustee should be able to easily access your online accounts and assets.
2. Choose your “digital executor” - This could be the same person managing your estate if you become incapacitated or pass away, but make sure that person is comfortable with technology. Some people name a separate “social media executor” who would be more tech savvy.
3. Specify what you want to happen - Some would like to cancel their accounts. Some want their accounts to survive as a legacy or memorial, allowing family and friends to access emails, photos, etc.
   1. Examples would be: “Memorialize my Facebook account”, “Delete my Twitter account”, “Here is how to withdraw cash from my PayPal account”.
   2. Make sure to look into the service provider’s policies to see what is allowed. For example, some accounts are nontransferable and any rights or contents may be terminated and deleted upon death.

With the proper planning, you can have a peace of mind that your trusted executor will not stress over where and how to manage your digital assets.