Include Your Online Accounts in Your Estate Planning

When you’re listing your assets in preparation for your estate planning consultation, be sure to include your online accounts.  If you don’t, accounts may be lost, inaccessible, or cause a hassle for your loved ones.

Financial Accounts

To ensure your online accounts are a part of your estate plan, be sure to let your estate planning attorney know about your:

• Bank accounts
• Investment accounts
• Retirement accounts
• PayPal accounts
• Retirement plan accounts
• Ebay and Amazon seller accounts

In addition, keep an up to date list of account numbers, usernames, and passwords with your estate planning documents in a safe place.  Let your trusted helpers know where all of these important papers are stored.

Other Online Accounts

You’ll need to make decisions regarding other non-financial online accounts?

• Do you want your FaceBook wall to remain intact, taken down, or frozen?  Would you like to leave a final message to be posted upon your death?
• What do you want to happen to any domain names that you own?
• Do you want your loved ones to have access to your email accounts so that a notification can be sent in response to incoming messages?
• If you run a blog, would you like a final entry to be posted?
• Do you want any of your online communities to be notified of your death?

The Importance of Updating

While your estate plan only needs to be update every three to five years or upon the occurrence of a significant life event, your online account information should likely be updated every 6 months or so.

Online accounts are dynamic with new passwords and new accounts implemented frequently.

If you have questions about how to include your online accounts in your estate planning, consult with a qualified estate planning attorney.