Being a user of gmail, I tend to get lots of targeted adsense ads at the top of my inbox when I first log in. Last week, when I sent out my email announcing this blog, the first ad I saw when looked at that email for an online service called iGoodbye. Their website (which I won't link) describes their services as follows:
Many of us have information about assets, financial accounts, and personal data that we would like to see passed on privately to ours heirs that we may be hesitant to share before we have actually departed this world.
iGoodbye.com is a simple, easy to use and inexpensive service that holds your electronic documents in trust during your lifetime. Documents are released to the recipients you specify only after we verify that you have passed away.
Typically clients store copies of wills, trusts, account passwords or special instructions to heirs. Clients can leave a message, a recorded message or video, a list of instructions or details about their assets to heirs after their death, without having to give out this information before that time.
In this day and age of computer passwords and account numbers, knowledge is power, and many of us are hesitant to prematurely give this type of information even to trusted loved ones. iGoodbye.com distributes the information you designate to recipients only after we have verified a death certificate with the local authorities.
All this for $30 a year paid by you or free (um, but $100 per year your information is stored- payable by your heirs/beneficiaries who later access the account).
The web 2.0 movement has brought us many innovative web-based services. Unfortunately, what iGoodbye says is "essential", simply is not. Copies of your documents (will, trusts, memoranda regarding funeral planning, nonbinding disposition instructions) can all be kept on file in your estate planning attorney's firevault; none of which can be accessed by third parties as it is your client file. I agree that with new technology, attention should be paid to online passwords for brokerage accounts, banking accounts, and the like; but couldn't those same items be kept in a safe-deposit box at your local bank or as a part of your documents with your attorney? It looks to be a good supplement for your client files, but not the only place your information should be.
The ability to leaves miscellaneous notes and video seems like a interesting idea and compelling to those tech-savvy persons inclined to keep all their documents and notes in one electronic site. If I was to subscribe, I would definitely not leave the payments up to my heirs as they may not foot the bill (not that it would matter to me at that point).
Copies of original documents aside (those have no business being put on the web, in my opinion); I'd be curious what other practitioners are doing with client passwords, web login IDs, etc.
