> all my passwords and credentials are in my password manager, and the password to that was only in my head.
It’s not just death I worry about. Anything that causes me to lose my memory of the password, from disease to head injury, leaves those trying to help me locked out of everything.
A password manager is an incredibly helpful tool to leave behind, it’s a compiled list of all vendors you have registered an online account with.
But, IIUC, without legal authority to access those accounts on my behalf it might not be sufficient. I’m planning to talk to an attorney that specializes in taking care of the legal side too. IIUC there are accounts you need legal authority to access even if you have the password. For example, if I give my friend the password to my 401k with the purpose of managing my estate, them using that password can put them in a legally gray area.
Also planning to work out a rough order of importance and context for a subset of accounts can help. Like writing down which financial vendor is managing the life insurance policy and whether that’s tied to my employer or not (if I lose my job leading up to my death, I.e. during a long battle with an injury, will I lose my life insurance before it pays out?)
A “red binder” project is on my families short list - the “I’m dead or incapacitated, here’s what you do” playbook. The above is how I’m thinking about things. I would love to hear more thoughts/perspectives
> But, IIUC, without legal authority to access those accounts on my behalf it might not be sufficient.
Relatedly, most digital accounts explicitly don't survive the user in their Terms of Service agreements. I think there are a lot of legal battles to come over digital inheritance rights for accounts like Movies Anywhere and Steam and App Store purchases.
> all my passwords and credentials are in my password manager, and the password to that was only in my head.
It’s not just death I worry about. Anything that causes me to lose my memory of the password, from disease to head injury, leaves those trying to help me locked out of everything.
A password manager is an incredibly helpful tool to leave behind, it’s a compiled list of all vendors you have registered an online account with.
But, IIUC, without legal authority to access those accounts on my behalf it might not be sufficient. I’m planning to talk to an attorney that specializes in taking care of the legal side too. IIUC there are accounts you need legal authority to access even if you have the password. For example, if I give my friend the password to my 401k with the purpose of managing my estate, them using that password can put them in a legally gray area.
Also planning to work out a rough order of importance and context for a subset of accounts can help. Like writing down which financial vendor is managing the life insurance policy and whether that’s tied to my employer or not (if I lose my job leading up to my death, I.e. during a long battle with an injury, will I lose my life insurance before it pays out?)
A “red binder” project is on my families short list - the “I’m dead or incapacitated, here’s what you do” playbook. The above is how I’m thinking about things. I would love to hear more thoughts/perspectives