Oxburgh Row Financial Blog

If something were to happen to you today, what would happen to your e-book collection? Your Facebook and Twitter accounts? All those tunes you’ve stored on your cloud drive?  Treasured emails from a loved one? All of the family photos you have stored online?

Welcome to the world of digital assets. It’s a growing part of estate planning that simply wasn’t relevant 10 years ago. But today, it’s crucial that we manage and protect our digital assets because of the growing amount of information and valuables — emails, music, images and much more — that are stored online.

At the very least, if you want your family to have access to your accounts, you’ll want to keep a record of sites and passwords. Keep it in your safe along with your other personal and financial documents.

Of course, if you don’t want anyone to gain access to your online assets after you are gone, that’s fine, too. Just let your family know that now. But if you do want them to be able to have access, you’ll want to make it easy for them. Did you know that in the event of your death, your family isn’t automatically entitled to retrieve your passwords and gain access to your accounts? Each website has its own rules regarding accounts of those who are deceased. But one thing is for sure: Having your passwords available will give your family more options.

Another issue you’ll need to think about in regards to your social media accounts is what to do with them over the long term. Do you want your family to delete them? Turn them into memorial accounts? Your wishes don’t necessarily need to be written down; you can simply make your desires known to your loved ones.