Will your heirs be locked out of your digital assets?
“People tend to talk about their online and offline lives, but it’s becoming more of a single life, and where there’s life there’s also death.” – Lisa Granberg.
What will happen to all your online accounts and assets after you die? How will your loved ones get the passwords to your email and social media accounts so they can inform your contacts of your death?
Several companies are now selling products that guard your online assets and send out messages after you die that will help your loved ones access your online accounts.
I still have questions about these services. I am concerned about the security of listing passwords online. On the other hand, online storage is usually easier to access than a hard copy of your passwords – which is what I traditionally advise clients to put together and keep in a good place.
Many of the online services provide additional bells and whistles, such as allowing you to send out a final message. They may offer storage of all your important documents (which are kept locked until the company has been properly notified of your death – in some ways a digital safe deposit box).
A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle (http://preview.tinyurl.com/digital-assets) provides a good look at these online services. I’d love to get my readers’ feedback. What do you think – hard copy, or digital safe deposit box?
Amanda said:
Feb 10, 10 at 18:34Wow, serious food for thought. I guess my take on it is to make a written list & store it with my estate planning docs for now, but revisit the idea of online services in a few years, so I can see whether people have had security issues.