LOST FOREVER: DIGITAL ASSETS IN AN OUTDATED ESTATE PLAN
Imagine, this…your dad, who you had just seen at Easter, using his camera to snap photos of his beloved family at church, the grandkids getting into their Easter basket, the Easter egg hunt, and then the family luncheon, dies unexpectedly two days later of a brain aneurism. You are devastated, thinking about the memories just made and you want to capture those moments from his cell phone, but it is locked. You call the cell phone provider, only to be told that they cannot give you any information, or access to the phone. The photos are lost forever!!! If only there were a way….
What Are Your Digital Assets?
We live in a very electronic age. Most of us cannot live without computers, cell phones, on-line banking, automatic bill pay, Facebook, email, etc. But you know, many people take all the security and passwords for granted in our electronic age when we are taught not to share these keys to our on-line lives. What happens to these things and your family’s ability to access these digital accounts and devices that control and drive your life when you are incapacitated or you die? A mess is the result, if they cannot easily access all that you control. But somethings you want to leave private, and that is the one of the keys to having your Digital Estate Plan in place.
This list is not exhaustive, but is to get you thinking about all of your Digital assets and information your family, power of attorney, executor or trustee will need if you become incapacitated or even die.
Email Accounts: Account user names and passwords.
Social Media Accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others.
Instant Messaging/Chat Accounts: Skype, Apple Messages, Google Hangouts, ICQ, Jabber, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, etc.
Multimedia Accounts: Instagram, Snapfish, Shutterfly, Flickr, Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, Apple iTunes, Pandora, Vimeo, Spotify, etc.
Publication Accounts: newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.
Cloud Storage Accounts: DropBox, Google Drive, Onebox, Box, and others.
Databases: Digital Organizers, Evernote, and other repositories
Photo libraries: Google, Collage, Shutterfly,
Cell phones
Archives & Backups: On-site backups; Crashplan, BackBlaze, Amazon S3, and other off-site services.
Financial Accounts: Banks, credit unions, brokerage accounts, mutual funds, retirement savings accounts, credit card accounts, employee benefit accounts, PayPal, Social Security.
Benefit Accounts: Airline miles, railroad miles, hotel rewards, retailer reward/loyalty programs
Insurance Accounts: Life, Property, Health, AD&D, Long Term Care, Cancer, Worker’s Comp
On-line Merchant Accounts: Department stores, Amazon, etc.
Online Businesses: Online stores, blogs, and websites, including PayPal, eBay and Etsy.
Website Accounts: Domain names, hosting services, online business accounts, etc.
Automatic Bill Pay and Automatic Charitable Donations
Employment accounts: Indeed, Career.com, Care.com
It is imperative that you consolidate all this information needed to access your accounts. It needs to be in a document that you keep secure but is easily accessed and understood by your family, your Digital Power of Attorney, Executor or Trustee. Think about all your digital assets, both personal and professional, and think about what they might be worth, financially, and emotionally. Just imagine how your significant other or family will feel if all their credit cards are frozen, if they cannot access precious photographs from your cell phone, or worse, if they cannot even access accounts to stop automatic payments from coming out of accounts to preserved assets for your heirs.
How Digital Assets Are Controlled
Terms of service agreements and privacy policies govern access to social media and email accounts. Most of these types of agreements state the account expires when a user dies and is not transferable. As a result, surviving family members are unable to access social media accounts or valuable digital assets, since most estate plans were created without consideration of these things and old state laws that govern the actions of personal representatives or executors were enacted before email and social media became widespread.
However, at least 46 states since 2013 have enacted laws addressing access to email, social media accounts, microblogging or other website accounts, or certain electronically stored information, upon a person’s incapacity or death. In 2016, North Carolina became one of the forty-one states that adopted digital assets laws.
Create Your Digital Asset Inventory
Your inventory should include all the information that describes your accounts, the access location, login information including user name and password, and all the other URL and need information, aka metadata that goes along with digital assets. Don’t forget photos, documents, and backups stored in the cloud or in off-site locations. Since this information changes often it is critical that you review and update the inventory regularly.
Plan for Unexpected Events
Although your inventory will probably be invaluable to you in your daily life, you should plan for two types of unexpected events:
The computer containing your inventory crashes, or your house burns down and any paper copies of your Inventory are lost. This shouldn’t be a big problem, if you have been diligent about maintaining backups and if you have shared copies with your trusted advisors including your power of attorney. An at home safe is one of the best ways to keep paper documents secure from catastrophes, but it has to be waterproof and fireproof.
You are incapacitated or die and your heirs need access to your digital assets. It is a good idea to identify someone that you trust to be your Digital Executor/Trustee and let them know what you want done with your digital assets. For example, you might want them to:
Archive everything for your heirs.
Provide access by specific individuals or groups to designated content.
Delete some or all of your digital assets. Be specific about your wishes.
If you want to let your executor decide what to do with your assets you should make the clear in the instructions.
You might want to archive your most important digital assets and then provide your executor with the information needed to access the archive. If you use 1Password, Google or some other password manager be sure to include the master password in the instructions. And don’t forget basic things like the password to your computer and password to your cell phone. NOTE: facial recognition and finger prints cannot be unlocked!)
At Thomas-Walters, PLLC, we care about you and your family, making sure every part of your estate plan preserve precious memories for your family and not leave a mess. Contact us for a free consultation to make sure you have considered everything for a perfect plan at (888) 787-1913 or to request your free Digital Asset Inventory Log.