The Digital Afterlife: Have You Planned Yours?

 

The Digital Afterlife:

Have You Planned Yours?

You are successful and secure. You followed expert advice and created an estate plan.  You have a comprehensive will, and perhaps a living trust, to transfer your assets -- real estate, automobiles, stock portfolio, treasured valuables -- to your heirs. That was adequate in 2003. But now -- in 2013 -- traditional estate planning is dangerously obsolete. What’s missing? Your “digital assets.”


 

 

What are Digital Assets?

The explosive growth of the internet in recent years has brought dramatic new ways that people connect with each other, conduct business, make purchases, and store information.

Even if you are only a casual internet user, you have an online identity, activities, and data. “Maybe you never thought of your Facebook [account], your eBay shop, or your virtual land on FarmVille as an ‘asset,’” but they may  have substantial financial or other value.

 
If you are an entrepreneur, the stakes are higher. All or most of the records, data, documents, and intellectual property of  your business may be stored online, including in data-storage sites in the “cloud.” Losing even temporary access to these digital assets could cause irreparable harm to the business and to your heirs.

If you haven’t updated your estate plan for the internet age, you should act right now to protect yourself and your family. “You need to pass on the keys to your digital kingdom,” says Rick Salmeron, a Dallas financial planner.

Digital Assets: Examples

Digital assets include your social media accounts -- and much more: all of your information, data, documents, and images stored in the “cloud,” and all types of online accounts and activities.  

Examples are:

• internet commerce sites (website with check-out pages, eBay,   Amazon, or Etsy shops)

• data-storage accounts like Google Docs

• photo- or video-sharing site accounts (YouTube, Flickr)

• online storage of business documents, records, data

• intellectual property stored digitally (e.g., a photographer’s portfolio, a writer’s manuscript)

• social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn) accounts

• email accounts

• banking, brokerage, retirement plan records and information

• insurance policies records

• credit accounts (e.g., frequent-flier, PayPal & payment destinations)

• “digital wallet” apps

• cell phone apps

• website and blog-hosting online locations

• domain names

• online accounts: eBay, Amazon, iTunes, Pandora, Rhapsody, Kindle

Action Plan

Your first step is the most important: understanding that you need to act right away to identify and protect your digital assets. Even if internet accounts have no obvious or immediate monetary value, you and your loved ones may view them as sentimentally important. Imagine the chaos and confusion if you were to die suddenly before you took the most preliminary steps: disclosing your online accounts and login information to a trusted family member or associate.

After that, you can move on to the additional details of your digital estate planning: making an inventory (with updated passwords!) of all digital assets; appointing a digital executor; researching online account policies and procedures for access or transfer at death; and deciding and writing down the disposition of each asset.

    Conclusion

Contact an experienced estate planning attorney for a consultation to help you with these important developments or to review and update your current documents.