Death, Taxes & All Those Passwords: Preparing Your Digital Life for Your Heirs

Everyone knows the old saying about “death and taxes,” but in today’s world there’s a new certainty: passwords. From bank and investment accounts to email, social media, and subscription services, your digital life spreads wider than you realize. If your heirs don’t have access, it can cause frustration, delays, and even financial loss. This is a more important issue than people realize.

So what to do?

Here are some practical steps to make sure your digital assets don’t get locked away forever:

• Make a Digital Asset Inventory. List your online accounts, devices, and key subscriptions. Include usernames, but store actual passwords securely (not in plain text).

• Use a Password Manager. Many services allow you to designate an emergency contact or share access securely. This is far safer than a written list. Personally, I use LastPass for this purpose. LastPass allows users to allow “Emergency Access” to designated people.

• Name a “Digital Executor.” In Oregon and Washington, you can include digital assets in your estate planning documents, giving a trusted person legal authority to manage them.

• Leverage Built-In Legacy Tools. Google, Apple, Facebook, and others offer “legacy contact” or “inactive account manager” settings so your heirs can request access without court intervention.

• Update Regularly. Just like your will or trust, review your digital plan every year or when major life events occur. This is easier said than done, and again a password manager service is helpful here.

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A little planning today can spare your family a lot of stress tomorrow. If you’d like help weaving your digital assets into your estate plan—or simply want to understand your options—feel free to reach out.

What Is a Digital Executor? (with focus on Oregon)

Most people appoint an “personal representative” in their will to handle their physical assets. But today your life is also stored online — bank log-ins, email, photos, social media, cloud files. A digital executor is the person you name to manage those online accounts after you’re gone.

In Oregon, there isn’t a separate, legally mandated “digital executor” form. Instead, Oregon adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act

(RUFADAA) (ORS 192.791–192.806). This law gives your personal representative (or trustee) limited authority to access your digital assets if you’ve granted permission in your will, trust, or through an online tool (such as Facebook’s “Legacy Contact” or Google’s “Inactive Account Manager”).

Key points for Oregonians:

You can designate one person — either your regular executor or a separate “digital executor” — in your will or trust with explicit authority over your digital assets.

Online tools override your documents. If you’ve named a “legacy contact” or “inactive account manager” within an account, that choice generally controls. Again, I use LastPass for this and recommend something like this. Honestly, this is the most fool proof method in my opinion.

Access is not automatic. Without your permission, even your executor may only get limited information or a copy of content, not control of the account.

Make a clear inventory. List your key accounts, password manager, and any special instructions, and keep it somewhere secure so your digital executor can act quickly and legally.

Naming a digital executor (and giving them the legal authority under Oregon’s RUFADAA) ensures your online accounts don’t become inaccessible or lost — and saves your family stress at an already difficult time.