With the digital age comes the need for adding digital planning to estate planning. However, many clients do not consider or bring up digital assets when meeting with estate planning professional. More than access to social media accounts are at risk if this step is forgotten. Many accounts are now paid online, such as electricity, and a missed payment could mean the deceased or incapacitated person’s home loses lights and power. Experts advise individuals create a master list of all online accounts with passwords that is kept outside the digital realm, such as on paper or a flash drive, and kept in a safe-deposit box with a location known to the person responsible for care of those accounts.
See Hannah Yang, Guide to Life: How to Handle Online Accounts During Estate Planning, The Columbus Dispatch, March 13, 2015.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.
