Why Your Estate Plan Should Include Your Digital Life

When most people think of estate planning, they picture wills, trusts, and dividing up physical assets like homes, jewelry, or family heirlooms. But in today’s world, there’s one important piece of your legacy that often gets overlooked: your digital life.

From email accounts and online banking to social media profiles and photo libraries, your digital footprint is a real and valuable part of your identity, and it deserves just as much protection as your physical assets.

What Is a Digital Estate Plan?

• A digital estate plan outlines what happens to your online presence and assets after you pass away. It can include:
• Email accounts
• Social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Online banking and investment platforms
• Cloud photo storage
• Subscriptions and digital memberships
• Online businesses or digital products
• Password managers and login credentials
• Without a plan in place, your loved ones may be left without access to important accounts, or vulnerable to identity theft, legal complications, or years of confusion and red tape.

Why It Matters

• Your digital presence holds more than data. It holds memories, personal records, financial access, and in many cases, parts of your professional life. Estate planning gives you the opportunity to:
• Designate who can access or manage your accounts
• Decide what should be deleted, preserved, or passed on
• Protect sensitive information
• Prevent unauthorized access
• Ensure your wishes are respected, both online and offline

Real-Life Examples

• A client wanted her adult children to have access to her iCloud photo albums, but not her email accounts. We helped her document those wishes legally.
• Another client ran an online business through Shopify and PayPal — and without a digital estate plan, her family wouldn’t have had access to critical financial data.
• These aren’t rare scenarios. They’re becoming more common every year.

How to Get Started

The good news? You don’t need to figure it out alone. When we create your estate plan, we’ll walk you through how to handle your digital assets with the same care and clarity as your financial ones.

We help clients:

• Identify digital assets that should be included
• Choose trusted individuals to manage or close accounts
• Document access instructions and preferences legally
• Integrate your digital plan into your larger estate plan seamlessly

Ready to protect your digital legacy?

Book a Peace of Mind Planning Session today and let’s talk about how to bring your entire estate plan, digital and physical, into alignment. Click HERE to get started!