Passing on your "digital legacy".

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

Soldato
Joined
6 Oct 2004
Posts
18,940
Location
Birmingham
A close colleague of mine passed away suddenly yesterday, and while we weren't particularly close outside of work, we had been out for a few lunches, drinks etc. several times with a couple of other guys from the team, and he was probably the person at work I had the closest connection with.

He was a really lovely guy, only slightly younger than me, wife, 2 young kids around the same age as mine - from what I could tell an awesome dad and husband. Similar taste in music, films etc. as me, so it's hit very close to home, I can't stop thinking about the situation his family must be in right now, and it's made me think about what would happen to my partner and kids if something were to happen to me.

They'd be financially taken care of; I have a couple of life insurance policies, plus death in service through work, so the mortgage would be fully paid along with enough left over to cover several years with no additional income, but I've been wondering how best to share all of the critical information about things like bank accounts, utilities, insurance etc.

My partner is quite scatty, and not particularly tech savvy, so I deal with most of the admin stuff; she wouldn't have a clue who our home/pet/car insurance etc./gas & electric/TV/internet are with, when they expire, passwords, account numbers, any of that, so I want to collate all of that information in a relatively secure way, but easy to access in an emergency.

The "easiest" for her would be a printed document with all the details, but that comes with the high likelihood of being lost and/or quickly outdated.
Anything online has the risk of a) her forgetting how to access it, and b) again with the security implications.
A USB stick with a document on it is maybe an option, but again there's the risk of it getting lost.

I have a 1Password account, which it would be handy to give her access to, and I could add a lot of the information in there, but short of writing down the master password for her (which has it's own security implications), I'm not sure how to do that.

Any suggestions on what you guys (and girls) have in place for such an eventuality would be highly appreciated!
 
Haggisman said:
A close colleague of mine passed away suddenly yesterday, and while we weren't particularly close outside of work, we had been out for a few lunches, drinks etc. several times with a couple of other guys from the team, and he was probably the person at work I had the closest connection with.

He was a really lovely guy, only slightly younger than me, wife, 2 young kids around the same age as mine - from what I could tell an awesome dad and husband. Similar taste in music, films etc. as me, so it's hit very close to home, I can't stop thinking about the situation his family must be in right now, and it's made me think about what would happen to my partner and kids if something were to happen to me.

They'd be financially taken care of; I have a couple of life insurance policies, plus death in service through work, so the mortgage would be fully paid along with enough left over to cover several years with no additional income, but I've been wondering how best to share all of the critical information about things like bank accounts, utilities, insurance etc.

My partner is quite scatty, and not particularly tech savvy, so I deal with most of the admin stuff; she wouldn't have a clue who our home/pet/car insurance etc./gas & electric/TV/internet are with, when they expire, passwords, account numbers, any of that, so I want to collate all of that information in a relatively secure way, but easy to access in an emergency.

The "easiest" for her would be a printed document with all the details, but that comes with the high likelihood of being lost and/or quickly outdated.
Anything online has the risk of a) her forgetting how to access it, and b) again with the security implications.
A USB stick with a document on it is maybe an option, but again there's the risk of it getting lost.

I have a 1Password account, which it would be handy to give her access to, and I could add a lot of the information in there, but short of writing down the master password for her (which has it's own security implications), I'm not sure how to do that.

Any suggestions on what you guys (and girls) have in place for such an eventuality would be highly appreciated!
Click to expand...

I share the most important passwords with my OH in a shared vault, so she can access sites whenever using her bitwarden login. Similarly I have access to hers in the even anything happens to her first.
 
I have a similar setup, the wife wouldn't know anything and I also think anything technical/with a risk of her forgetting how to access might not be workable for her. Ultimately I think there is no easy answer, my approach now you've raised this and I've realised it applies to me is going to be to approach my wife about it with a view to making a conscious effort to work on improving the elements that she is "deficient" in, in order to make an actually robust solution workable.
 
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To be completely honest, your wife needs to get with the times, because if something does happen, she will need these skills in the future, unless someone else is going to arrange everything for her.
 
Feels like the Labour government will start taxing digital "assets" any day now :P

If you have a lot of wealth in bitcoins (no taxes on that, just don't cash it out all at once in the UK lol), that will be the one they need to know how to get to and keep secure.
 
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Tricky !!

I am a lot older than you and have thought about this for quite a time - First thing I did was list all things that need to be seen to. Put it all down on paper and sent it to solicitor in sealed envelope with details on front as to what it is to put in their file with the will -If any change is made I send them a updated version.
That clears the way if we both go.
Now the wife problem - I have made her sit at PC and log into her bank -joint bank and my bank. Told her numerous times what services we have and that everything is on direct debit. Over a meal I will say 6D (made up) and she finishes the rest -That is her bank log in number. (not password.)
It all boils down to keeping it up to date and have a writen list which is in her bank file. Not good if you get burgled.
My wife gets all ratty if I shout at her for not listening so make sure you can both find a peaceful 30 min and just go through it bit at a time and make sure she understands it is very important.:(
 
Ayahuasca said:
To be completely honest, your wife needs to get with the times, because if something does happen, she will need these skills in the future, unless someone else is going to arrange everything for her.
Click to expand...

While I completely agree, and it's something I'm going to try to work on with her, I'd also like to make it as easy as possible for the peace of mind that her technical ability (or lack thereof) at an extremely emotional time isn't going to cause her even more stress!

Zefan said:
I have a similar setup, the wife wouldn't know anything and I also think anything technical/with a risk of her forgetting how to access might not be workable for her. Ultimately I think there is no easy answer, my approach now you've raised this and I've realised it applies to me is going to be to approach my wife about it with a view to making a conscious effort to work on improving the elements that she is "deficient" in, in order to make an actually robust solution workable.
Click to expand...

Yes, as above, I could probably do with handing over at least some of the responsibilities to her, if for nothing else than to "train" her into being a bit more comfortable with it in the event that anything does happen

DXP55 said:
It all boils down to keeping it up to date and have a writen list which is in her bank file. Not good if you get burgled.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering what the real risk is of a burglary - your average thief is unlikely to be looking for random bits of paper, so unless it's in a really obvious place that screams "I'm important", I would imagine that particular threat to be minimal.

danoliver1 said:
My mate said he will delete those "special" folders on my hard drive when I die. Now there's a true friend. ;)
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After taking some copies for his own use of course!
 
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Haggisman said:
A close colleague of mine passed away suddenly yesterday, and while we weren't particularly close outside of work, we had been out for a few lunches, drinks etc. several times with a couple of other guys from the team, and he was probably the person at work I had the closest connection with.

He was a really lovely guy, only slightly younger than me, wife, 2 young kids around the same age as mine - from what I could tell an awesome dad and husband. Similar taste in music, films etc. as me, so it's hit very close to home, I can't stop thinking about the situation his family must be in right now, and it's made me think about what would happen to my partner and kids if something were to happen to me.

They'd be financially taken care of; I have a couple of life insurance policies, plus death in service through work, so the mortgage would be fully paid along with enough left over to cover several years with no additional income, but I've been wondering how best to share all of the critical information about things like bank accounts, utilities, insurance etc.

My partner is quite scatty, and not particularly tech savvy, so I deal with most of the admin stuff; she wouldn't have a clue who our home/pet/car insurance etc./gas & electric/TV/internet are with, when they expire, passwords, account numbers, any of that, so I want to collate all of that information in a relatively secure way, but easy to access in an emergency.

The "easiest" for her would be a printed document with all the details, but that comes with the high likelihood of being lost and/or quickly outdated.
Anything online has the risk of a) her forgetting how to access it, and b) again with the security implications.
A USB stick with a document on it is maybe an option, but again there's the risk of it getting lost.

I have a 1Password account, which it would be handy to give her access to, and I could add a lot of the information in there, but short of writing down the master password for her (which has it's own security implications), I'm not sure how to do that.

Any suggestions on what you guys (and girls) have in place for such an eventuality would be highly appreciated!
Click to expand...
If you use Bitwarden you can designate an emergency user in case of death or other emergency.

bitwarden.com

Emergency Access | Bitwarden

The emergency access feature of the Bitwarden password manager enables you to designate trusted emergency contacts to access your Vault in an emergency.
bitwarden.com bitwarden.com
 
I keep trying to get hold of my niece so I can sort out my will, as I want her to handle my estate.

Not to fussed about my fb memes but I have loads of bank accounts and accounts on different shares platforms, that she needs to be aware of. Heck even my online betting account has a few £100s in it. She probably be wide open about the 3/4 million from my work life insurance and forget about everything else!
 
I use Bitwarden with my missus as a trusted emergency contact. If I die, she can take over my account which will give her access to everything including any 2FA. I've shared my finance spreadsheet with her so she can see any accounts we have and also have an old school emergency sheet that I keep up to date and she knows where it is. It's a good job I'm anal and like being organised, I'm fairly confident she shouldn't have any issues getting onto anything. I've just got to hope only one of us kicks the bucket though, as if both of us do, my family will have no idea what to do.
 
Street said:
I use Bitwarden with my missus as a trusted emergency contact. If I die, she can take over my account which will give her access to everything including any 2FA. I've shared my finance spreadsheet with her so she can see any accounts we have and also have an old school emergency sheet that I keep up to date and she knows where it is. It's a good job I'm anal and like being organised, I'm fairly confident she shouldn't have any issues getting onto anything. I've just got to hope only one of us kicks the bucket though, as if both of us do, my family will have no idea what to do.
Click to expand...

A good point - I think it's probably a conversation to get my 13 year old involved in as well, just in case...
 
I lost my dad in Feb 22, quite suddenly, he was only 58. Saw what my step-mum had to go through. I think with a phone call, providing proof such as a wedding certificate and death certificate she was able to get access to everything she needed quite quickly. People dying and spouses needing access, unfortunately, must be a pretty 'standard' practice for any sort of utilities companies/banks etc.

I wouldn't worry too much.
 
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Mason- said:
I lost my dad in Feb 22, quite suddenly, he was only 58. Saw what my step-mum had to go through. I think with a phone call, providing proof such as a wedding certificate and death certificate she was able to get access to everything she needed quite quickly. People dying and spouses needing access, unfortunately, must be a pretty 'standard' practice for any sort of utilities companies/banks etc.

I wouldn't worry too much.
Click to expand...

Part of the problem is knowing who to make that phone call to in the first place!
 
Its an interesting subject.

I have 3 pensions, around 8 bank/savings accounts, 4 or 5 credit cards and some pre-paid cards. If you asked me, I couldn't list everything off the top of my head.

I need to figure out how to get this sorted. It's all well and good having a will and 60% goes here and 20% goes there etc, but if no one knows where anything is, thats' not going to help.

My brother who I live with is tech savvy, and is the major beneficiary. My long time GF can't do any of this stuff. I have managed to get her to be able to log into her santander account, and knows about 2FA, but she can do that stuff because it's common for her now. No way could she handle reconciling all my stuff if both me and my bro died, and to be honest it would be a nightmare for my brother to sort out.
 
So far my thoughts are:
  • Printed copy of my 1Password "emergency kit" in a safe & inconspicuous location in the house, with a backup copy at my mum's.
  • Printed copy of life insurance policy details, which aren't going to change any time soon.
  • Details of bank accounts, utilities, insurance etc. added to 1Password and kept up to date.
  • Both my partner & oldest "trained" on how to to use the emergency kit to gain access to my 1Password account.
Will also look into the family account and what additional functionality this offers - I believe I can share vault items with other members, so if I can do that with the various account details then that will make life a lot easier.
 
Haggisman said:
...she wouldn't have a clue who our home/pet/car insurance etc./gas & electric/TV/internet
Click to expand...

Even if you don't get sent anything by post, it's easy enough to print out policy details or contracts and store them somewhere. There are often PDFs you can download.
 
I've already listed my wife and kids as beneficiaries and have life and critical illness cover. As for passwords and everything, she'd just need the death certificate to take over accounts probably. But that's a good question to understand.
 
I guess….just need pin to the phone and after that all 2 factors comes through to the phone…although Face ID need to be switched off for a lot of the security?
 
Getting your partner up to speed on how the household is run is a good idea.

If like me you are in Apple land, you can setup your partner as a legacy contact.

How to add a Legacy Contact for your Apple Account – Apple Support (UK)

A Legacy Contact is someone you choose to have access to the data in your Apple Account after your death. Find out about the information that's shared with your Legacy Contact and how to add one or more Legacy Contacts.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
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