Twenty years ago, your estate fit in a filing cabinet. Today, much of your life is locked behind passwords your family has never seen. A digital legacy plan is no longer optional.
The four categories
Financial digital: banking, brokerage, super, crypto. The accounts that hold actual money.
Identity digital: email, password vault, device passcodes, cloud storage. The accounts that unlock everything else.
Sentimental digital: photo libraries, family videos, social media. The memories your family will most want.
Operational digital: subscriptions, domains, business platforms. The accounts that need to be closed, transferred or maintained.
How to build the plan
Inventory everything. Decide what should happen to each account on incapacity and on death (preserve, transfer, memorialise, delete). Document the access path — credentials, recovery keys, two-factor methods. Store it all in an encrypted vault with a release protocol your executor can follow.
And coordinate with your estate lawyer. A will that does not authorise digital access is not enough. The two must work together.