As the world becomes more virtual, so do our assets. The list of digital property is ever growing, as is its value. These assets include social media profiles, intellectual property, smartphones, emails, credit card points, airline miles, timeshare points, online storage and computing hardware as a start. Consider also all of your electronic passwords used to access your bank, investment, and retirement accounts, as well as your iTunes, Amazon, PayPal, eBay, and Bitcoin accounts. What happens to them if something happens to you? Other examples of electronic or digital assets include online access information for insurance, medical information, online bill paying, and the list goes on—welcome to the world of estate planning for digital assets.
Unfortunately, traditional estate planning does not consider or readily accommodate these assets. Imagine when you die, your family and friends losing irreplaceable photos from social media or the cloud because there is no access—the modern-day version of losing photos in a house fire. In response, several states are considering, and some have passed, laws to control access to and disposition of an individual’s digital assets upon incapacity or death. Not surprisingly, the legislative process to enact such laws is not moving at the speed of technology.
