The digital legacy checklist: 10 things your family can't find right now
Most estates aren't delayed by missing money — they're delayed by missing information. Here's what to write down before it's needed.
Think about everything your family would need if you weren't there to explain it tomorrow. Not the big dramatic things — the boring, specific ones. The email account that receives the bank statements. The password to the phone that receives the verification codes.
Most families can't answer these. Here's the checklist we wish everyone kept.
The checklist
Primary email accounts. Almost every other account resets through email. If your family can't open your inbox, they can't open anything else.
Phone unlock codes. Two-factor authentication means your phone is the second key to everything. A locked phone can stall an estate for months.
Bank accounts — all of them. Including the old savings account from two jobs ago and the fixed deposit your spouse half-remembers.
Investment and brokerage accounts. Especially the app-only platforms with no paper statements. If nothing arrives in the mail, nothing reminds anyone it exists.
Insurance policies. Life insurance only pays out if someone knows to claim it. Unclaimed policies are a quiet, enormous problem worldwide.
Property records. Deeds, mortgage details, the name of the lawyer who handled the purchase.
Recurring payments and subscriptions. Both to cancel the streaming services and to not cancel the one that's quietly paying the electricity bill.
Cryptocurrency and digital assets. No seed phrase, no coins. There is no customer support line for a hardware wallet.
The professionals. Your accountant, your lawyer, your financial adviser — the people who already know pieces of the picture.
Your wishes. Not just the legal will — the human instructions. Who gets grandmother's ring. What to do about the dog.
Writing it down is half the job. Securing it is the other half.
A list like this is exactly what you must never keep in a notes app, an email draft, or a spreadsheet called passwords.xlsx. It's the most sensitive document you'll ever create.
This is the problem ShareMyVault exists to solve: one place for all of it, encrypted on your own device so no one — including us — can read it, and shareable with the people you trust when it matters. Start with the three accounts your family would need first. The rest can come one item at a time.