The Digital Legacy Checklist

These are the accounts that keep charging, keep paying, or quietly go unclaimed. Start here — this is where the real losses happen.

• Bank and savings accountsWhich bank, which branch. Not the password — the fact that it exists.
• Life insurance policiesThe most commonly unclaimed asset there is. Nobody claims what they don’t know about.
• Pensions and retirement accountsIncluding old employer schemes you no longer think about.
• Investment and brokerage accounts
• Subscriptions that renew automaticallyThese keep charging a dead person’s card for years.
• Money owed to youLoans to friends, deposits, unpaid invoices — invisible unless written down.

Every other item on this list has a human somewhere who can help. Crypto does not. If the keys are gone, the money is gone, permanently.

• Hardware wallets — and where they physically are
• Seed phrases — and where each one is storedWhere, not what. Never write the words themselves in a document like this.
• Exchange accountsThese have support teams and inheritance processes. Self-custody does not.
• The PIN or passphrase for each deviceA hardware wallet without its PIN is a paperweight.
• Anyone who already knows part of the setup

Most people have one account that can reset all the others. If nobody can open that one, the rest are unreachable no matter how organised you were.

• Your primary email accountThis is the master key. Password resets for everything land here.
• Your password managerAnd its master password — which by design nobody else knows.
• Your phone passcodeTwo-factor codes arrive here. Without it, even the right password fails.
• Two-factor recovery codesThe printed backup codes you saved once and never looked at again.
• Your computer login and disk encryption key

Not secrets — paperwork. The problem is rarely secrecy. It is that nobody knows which drawer, which folder, which cloud account.

• Will, and where the signed original is kept
• Property deeds and mortgage papers
• Vehicle titles and registration
• Birth, marriage and citizenship certificates
• Medical directives or power of attorney
• Your accountant, lawyer or notary — name and number

Worth nothing on paper and everything to the people left behind. These are lost most often, because no institution exists to chase them.

• Photos and video — where they actually liveA cloud account nobody can open is the same as no photos at all.
• Social and messaging accountsDecide: memorialise, hand over, or delete. Say which.
• Letters or messages you want delivered
• Instructions you would want followedFuneral wishes, who to tell first, what not to do.

A perfect list nobody can find has done nothing. This section is what turns a list into a plan.

• Choose who should receive thisOne primary person, one backup. Tell them they were chosen.
• Make sure they can actually reach itA sealed envelope in your desk fails if they never learn it exists.
• Decide when they should get it — not beforeThis is the hard part. Access now is a security hole; access never is the default failure.
• Set a date to review itOnce a year. Accounts change, people change, devices change.