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Planning Your Digital Estate

Friday, 10 May 2013

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Deciding how to manage one's digital legacy has turned into one of the trickiest estate-planning tasks. Facebook status updates, blogs posts, tweets, digital music libraries and other digital remains may have significant financial or personal value to the families. Failure to plan ahead may prevent loved ones from recovering these digital items of personal value and information pertaining to bills or other financial liabilities. It could also leave your estate vulnerable to identity theft.
The first step to start navigating through this new world of digital estate planning it is important to recognize the obstacles one faces, such as all the legal terms of use and service of each online service provider. Providers differ in how one can handle accounts of deceased users. Yahoo for example, will terminate your account upon your death if a certificate is submitted. Google recently introduced a new feature allowing users to specify the termination of account data should the account be inactive for a certain period or passed along to specific individuals.
Some accounts that you access online do not pose an estate-planning challenge. Financial institutions do have clear procedures an account holder's death. Always check the terms of use and inquire what will happen to your account in case you pass away.

Retrieved from Kiplinger's Retirement Report

About the author

Sandra Field, MBA, CFP®

Sandra Field, founder, of Asset Planning Inc. (API), is a Certified Financial Planner and has been an active professional in the financial services industry for over 23 years. She is recently named as one of nation's leading wealth mangers by Bloomberg "Wealth Manager" magazine.

A Southern California native, Sandra graduated from California State University Long Beach with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and from University of Southern California with a Masters in Business Administration.

Sandra is a member of NAPFA (National Association of Personal Financial Advisors) and the Financial Planning Association. Sandra has served on the board of directors for the Orange County Chapter of FPA. Well respected in the industry, she is a featured financial advisor for the LA Times "Money Makeovers" as well as for the "One On One" column in the Orange County Register. In addition, Sandra serves on the Mutual Fund Panel of Experts for the Orange County Register Newspaper. She is also an active member of the community, serving as past President of the Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce, past Vice President of Finance on the Board of Directors for the American Cancer Society, and past Business Advisor to the City of Seal Beach.

Last but not least, she is a featured speaker at many public and private functions such as AAII (American Association of Individual Investors), Cal State Univ. Long Beach, EWGA and USC. She recently spoke at the WISE (Women In Securities & Education) conference, conducting a live money makeover before 400 women.

Whether she is assisting clients to reach their retirement goals or selecting the right investments for clients, education is at the core of Sandra's philosophy. She emphasizes the importance of developing a relationship with and educating clients, placing the utmost importance on helping them reach their goals, whatever they may be.

Asset Planning, Inc Blog

Planning Your Digital Estate

About the author

Sandra Field, MBA, CFP®

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