Organizing Digital Assets - A Life and Death Matter
As seen in Forbes on July 14, 2020
Managing digital assets in life—and protecting them after you’re gone—is increasingly complex, and a growing number of providers offer a solution.
Generally speaking, these companies—for a fee—help people collect their digital assets in what’s known as a digital vault, and they help them manage the post-death transition of the assets as well. The goal is to organize a person’s digital footprint for when they are no longer around and prevent potential issues such as theft that can crop up after death.
Certainly, people can manage their digital assets without paying for professional help, but it’s not necessarily an easy task. There are many categories of digital assets, making it easy for some to get lost in the shuffle, especially for people who don’t keep close tabs.
Digital assets can include online banking, brokerage and cryptocurrency accounts. Also included are online photos, videos, blog posts, online family trees, email, social-media accounts, frequent flier miles, credit card points and more.
If your head’s already spinning, here’s something else to consider: The average person under 70 years old has more than 160 digital accounts, according to Legacy Concierge, a provider that helps people identify, protect and store their digital assets.
The good news is that many estate planning documents today contain provisions for digital assets, which wasn’t necessarily the case if the estate plan was crafted more than a few years ago. The trouble is, even when estate planning documents contain provisions for digital assets, locating the various assets can be a time-consuming and arduous task for executors if the decedent hasn’t properly prepared.
Most people, even if they keep records, don’t update their list of digital assets regularly. Even if they do, they don’t always collect all the information an executor might need, says Betsy Ehrenberg, founder and chief executive of Legacy Concierge.
These planning missteps can be costly. Forgotten assets can mean unclaimed monies for heirs, and they can also cause financial headaches, if, for instance, bills go unpaid because the executor doesn’t know certain accounts exist.
Theft is another major concern. Criminals routinely comb through death records in the hopes of making illicit gains, so time is of the essence when it comes to shutting off access to digital assets after a person has passed. That, however, requires an executor to know precisely what digital assets a person has.
That’s where digital vault providers aim to help. They do things like help people create a list of their digital assets and specify how these assets should be handled at death. For some people, using a provider to help consolidate their digital information, assist with the appointment of the digital executor and transition the accounts after death can offer piece of mind.
