One of the exciting parts of estate planning is thinking about how much your loved ones will enjoy what you leave behind for them. Whether you are leaving behind money or other assets, you know your friends and family will appreciate the support you leave for them.
While some assets are straightforward to give to another person, some are more complex. In some cases, the asset you want to pass on may come with specific challenges.
Here’s what you should know about the challenges that come with including your digital assets in your estate plan.
An account for your life, not theirs
Not long ago, friends and family members would leave behind their extensive movie or music collections for their loved ones to enjoy. Now, instead of boxes of vinyl records or DVDs, you likely have terabytes of media stored on a digital platform.
In some cases, media platforms have clauses that detail how long you own the song, movie, album or show. For many platforms, you lose your account (and your media) when you pass away.
As you prepare your estate plan, you should read through your media platform agreements. Some of them include a certain number of included downloads. You may want to consider downloading your media and copying it onto an external storage device. While you may not be able to pass on the account, you can include physical copies in your estate plan.
Maintaining your digital asset records
The difficulty with digital assets is that if your loved ones do not know you have them, they may not know where to look. While your friends or family may stumble across a box of collectibles, if they do not know you have assets like digital media or cryptocurrency, they might never find them.
When preparing your estate plan, be sure to include a list of updated passwords and other account information for your digital assets. Your list should be part of your estate plan so that your loved ones can find (and distribute) your assets according to your wishes.