The Coffee Shop Series: Your Will Needs to Talk About Your Online Life, Too

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Don't Forget To Plan for Your Online Accounts, Too.

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Most people know they should think about the house, land, vehicles, bank accounts, and personal belongings when they make a will. Those are the things we usually think of first because they feel like traditional property. They are visible. They are familiar. They are the kinds of things families have been dealing with in successions for generations.

But today, a lot of important information is not sitting in a filing cabinet or a desk drawer. It may be stored in an email account, on a cell phone, in iCloud, in Google Drive, in a social media account, in an online banking portal, in a payment app, or inside a password manager. That means a modern Louisiana will needs to consider more than the property people can see and touch.

This is where digital assets and online accounts become important.

What are digital assets?

When lawyers talk about “digital assets,” it can sound more complicated than it really is. For most families, we are talking about online accounts, electronic records, stored files, digital photographs, cloud storage, and other information kept electronically.

That may include email accounts, social media accounts, digital photo storage, online banking access, cloud documents, payment apps, cryptocurrency accounts, websites, domain names, business pages, subscription accounts, and records stored on a phone or computer.

Some of these accounts may have actual financial value. Others may not be worth money in the traditional sense, but they may contain information your family needs after your death. An email account may show bank notices, insurance information, retirement account statements, tax records, business communications, property documents, bills, automatic drafts, or account alerts. A cloud account may hold family photographs, important documents, or business records. A phone may contain two-factor authentication codes, contacts, or information that helps your family identify what needs to be handled.

In other words, digital assets are not just about technology. They are about information, access, organization, privacy, and making things easier for the people who may have to handle your affairs.

Why should my will mention online accounts?

A will should do more than say who gets what. A good estate plan should also help the right person handle what needs to be handled after death.

In Louisiana, a properly authorized succession representative may have authority to deal with a deceased person’s digital accounts. But that does not mean every family member automatically has access, and it does not mean every online provider will simply hand over account information because someone asks for it.

The family may still have to deal with court documents, provider procedures, federal privacy law, encryption, passwords, and the difference between closing an account and getting the actual contents of an account. That is why it helps for a will to include language addressing digital assets and online accounts.

A digital assets provision can help show who you want to have authority to handle your online information after death. It can give your executor or succession representative clearer direction. It can also make it easier for that person to work with providers, request records, preserve important information, close accounts, protect business assets, or locate information needed for the succession.

What should a digital assets provision cover?

The exact wording should be prepared by an attorney, but the general idea is that your will should clearly authorize the proper person to handle digital accounts and electronically stored information when necessary.

That may include authority to access, manage, preserve, transfer, close, delete, or request information from digital accounts. It may also include authority to deal with email accounts, social media accounts, cloud storage, digital photographs, online financial accounts, digital business accounts, websites, domain names, subscription accounts, and other electronic records.

The goal is not to give someone permission to rummage through your private life for no reason. The goal is to make sure the right person has enough authority to handle the things that actually need to be handled. That may mean finding insurance information, locating bank records, preserving family photos, protecting a business account, stopping automatic payments, or helping identify assets and debts for the succession.

This is why digital asset language should be thoughtful. Some people want their representative to have broad access. Others want access limited to what is necessary to administer the estate.

Some people want certain accounts preserved, while others want certain accounts deleted or memorialized. Those wishes should be discussed before the will is signed.

Should I put my passwords in my will?

Passwords should not be listed directly in a will. A will may eventually become part of a court record during a succession, and that is not where anyone wants private login information.

A better approach is to let the will provide the legal authority and keep account information in a separate secure place. That may be a password manager, a secure digital vault, a sealed instruction letter, or another method that makes sense for the person and the family.

The will can say who has authority. The secure list can help that person know where to look. Those two things work together, but they should not be the same document.

What about photos, memories, and social media?

Not every digital account is about money. Sometimes the most meaningful things are family photographs, videos, recipes, writings, genealogy information, saved messages, or memories stored online.

If those things matter to you, your estate plan should address them. You may want certain photographs preserved and shared with family. You may want a social media account memorialized. You may want some accounts deleted. You may want business-related accounts treated differently from personal accounts.

These are not always easy conversations, but they are helpful ones. Your family should not have to guess what you wanted done with your online life at the same time they are grieving and trying to handle a succession.

What if I own a business?

Business owners need to pay special attention to digital accounts. Many small businesses depend on email, online banking, payroll platforms, bookkeeping software, websites, social media pages, cloud storage, advertising accounts, payment processors, client communication systems, and domain names.

If no one knows how to preserve or access those accounts, the business can be affected quickly. Bills may go unpaid, clients may not be contacted, records may be unavailable, and online pages may sit untouched.

This matters for small business owners, self-employed people, contractors, landlords, farmers, content creators, online sellers, and anyone else who keeps business information electronically. A digital estate plan can help protect not only family memories, but also income, business value, client records, and operations.

What about two-factor authentication?

Two-factor authentication is another practical issue families run into. Even if someone knows a password, many accounts now require a text message, authentication app, backup code, or approval from a trusted device.

That means a family may have the password and still be locked out. Your estate plan should consider where important devices are kept, how account recovery works, whether backup codes exist, and how the authorized person can locate the information needed to act.

This does not mean giving everyone access during your lifetime. It means planning carefully so the right person can do what needs to be done later.

Should I use legacy contact tools?

Some companies offer tools that allow users to make decisions ahead of time about account access after death. Apple has a Legacy Contact feature, Google has an Inactive Account Manager, and other platforms may have their own deceased-user or memorialization procedures.

These tools can be helpful, but they should not be treated as a complete replacement for a Louisiana will. Provider tools may have limits, may not cover every account, and may change over time. A better approach is to combine a proper will, clear digital asset language, secure account information, and provider tools where available.

What should Louisiana residents do now?

If you are making or updating a will, ask about digital assets. Think about the accounts you use every day, where your bank notices go, where your photos are stored, whether you receive important documents by email, whether you use online-only accounts, and whether your family would know where to find insurance, retirement, tax, business, or property information.

You do not have to give your family every password during your lifetime. You do not have to make every private thing public. You do not have to let everyone into every corner of your personal life.

But you should make a plan.

A practical digital estate plan may include a will with digital asset language, a trusted person named to handle those accounts, a secure list of important accounts, instructions for photos and social media, planning for business accounts, and use of legacy tools when available.

If we were having coffee and talking about this in plain language, I would explain it this way: your family may not need every password you have, and they do not need to know every private detail of your life. But if something happens to you, they may need a legal way to find the information necessary to handle your succession. Your will should help them do that by identifying the person with authority, protecting your privacy, and reducing the chance that your family is locked out of information they truly need.

Your life is not only in your house, your land, or your bank account anymore. A lot of it is online, and your Louisiana will should be modern enough to deal with that.

This article is for general educational purposes only and is not legal advice for any specific situation. Digital account access can involve Louisiana succession law, federal privacy law, provider policies, court documents, encryption, and estate planning language. If you are preparing or updating a Louisiana will, speak with an attorney about whether digital asset language should be included in your estate plan.

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Judith L. Hampton

Attorney At Law

Hampton Law Firm