We spend so much time talking about houses and cars, but what about your "digital estate"? You have thousands of photos in the cloud, an email account linked to every bill you pay, and maybe some crypto that requires a 24-word "seed phrase" stored in your brain.
If you die tomorrow, all of that is locked. Without explicit legal permission in your estate documents, tech companies won't share your data with your family, even after you pass away. Your family will have to fight Apple or Google (and they will lose) just to get your family photos.
Action plan
- Set up a "Legacy Contact" in your iPhone / Apple ID settings.
- Use a password manager and make sure your executor has the master key.
- If you didn't do your plan with me, let's update your Trust to include "digital asset" language so your executor has the legal authority to get into your accounts. (I always include this language in my clients' documents.)