Estate Planning is Essential
From Bank Accounts to Family Memories: Why Estate Planning Is Essential to Secure Your Digital Legacy
By Ryan Andersen on Sept 19th, 2024 • 7 min read
From Bank Accounts to Family Memories: Why Estate Planning Is Essential to Secure Your Digital Legacy
In the digital age, estate planning is no longer just about who inherits your house or your heirloom watch; it's also about who gains access to your email accounts, who gets and controls your social media profiles, and how your digital assets from photos to cryptocurrencies are handled after you're gone. From our financial transactions to our most treasured memories, our digital assets have become an integral part of our lives. As our lives become increasingly digital, securing your digital legacy with LVED.com has become a crucial component of modern estate planning, ensuring that your online life and assets are managed according to your wishes.
Your Digital Estate
Our digital footprints are more extensive than ever, including social media accounts, email, cryptocurrency, and online businesses. Without proper estate planning, these assets could remain active indefinitely, become inaccessible to loved ones, or even fall into the wrong hands. By incorporating digital assets into your estate plan, you can appoint someone to manage or deactivate your accounts, safeguarding your privacy and preserving your digital legacy.

Cryptocurrency, for example, requires careful management due to its complexity. Estate planning ensures that your heirs can access these assets, preventing them from being lost or locked away. Similarly, for entrepreneurs with digital businesses, estate planning is vital for outlining succession plans and transferring ownership of digital assets to ensure business continuity.

Protecting Your Digital Life
Specifying who should access your digital assets in your estate plan protects sensitive information from unauthorized use. With cyber threats on the rise, it's essential to include provisions in your estate plan for protecting your digital assets and accounts, employing security measures like strong passwords and encryption.

Digital debts and obligations, such as online subscriptions or loans, must be addressed in your estate plan. Proper management or termination of these obligations after your passing prevents unnecessary financial burdens for your heirs.

Preserving Your Digital Memories
Beyond financial assets, our digital lives are filled with precious sentimental value—family photos, videos, and personal correspondence stored online. Estate planning allows you to pass on these cherished memories to future generations, ensuring that your family history is documented and honored according to your wishes.

Take Stock of Your Digital Life
Creating a comprehensive digital inventory is a foundational step in estate planning for the digital age. This inventory should include all your online accounts, digital files, and electronic devices. Start by listing your social media profiles, email accounts, online banking and investment accounts, and any other platforms where you have a digital presence. Don't forget about your digital assets like cryptocurrency wallets, online store accounts, and cloud storage services.

Next, consider your digital files. This includes everything from important documents stored on your computer or in the cloud, to personal photos and videos saved on your phone or an external hard drive. Make sure to note the location of these files and how they can be accessed. Your electronic devices are also part of your digital life. Include in your inventory smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, and any other devices that store digital information.

As you plan ahead, think about how you want your online accounts to be handled. Do you want your social media profiles to be memorialized or deleted? Should your personal emails be shared with a loved one or erased? These decisions should be documented in your estate plan to ensure your wishes are carried out.

Digital Estate Planning with LVED.com
The digital age demands a new approach to estate planning, one that encompasses both our physical and digital lives. That's where LVED.com comes in. We designed LVED.com to help you easily organize, securely store, share and update your digital legacy, making it an integrated part of your estate plan. By taking proactive steps to include digital assets in your estate plan, you provide peace of mind for yourself and your loved ones, knowing that every aspect of your legacy is preserved and managed according to your wishes.

Start your digital estate planning journey today with Lved.com and ensure that your digital legacy is as well-cared-for as your physical one, creating a comprehensive plan that reflects your life in its entirety.