The population are busy accumulating digital assets. This might be a host of photos on social media, to a small fortune in your betting or PayPal account.
When you think more about it, we seem to live our lives online these days and one of the ways we can easily ‘lose our identity’ is through having our email accounts hacked. Our email addresses tend to be linked to our social media platforms, bank accounts, utilities, TV contracts and so much more with a potential for untold damage.
Keeping your assets secure is certainly essential. Having secure passwords is incredibly important but remembering these details can be a challenge at times.
With this in mind you or your clients may wish to open a life vault through the Society of Will Writers.
The life vault is opened during your lifetime. It allows you to securely store bank details, passwords, life insurance information, pension statements, and information about shares, videos you’ve recorded for your family for when you’ve passed away as well as copies of your Will, LPA and other important estate planning tools.
Not convinced? Consider this. You’re travelling abroad. On arrival your luggage has gone missing. Your day gets worse, you get mugged and your passport, driving license and wallet get stolen. Here are two possible outcomes:
- You don’t have a life vault. You can’t prove your identity at the embassy. You can’t cancel your credit card with your bank. You can’t notify your travel insurance provider what happened without great difficulty.
- You have a vault. Using your secure logins you have access to your travel insurance documents, copies of your driving license, passport and have your national insurance number. In addition you can access your bank details and can notify your bank that your card has been stolen.
There is so much more to the vault than simple storage. The vault can be used to collate all the information an executor would need after a testator passed away. Copies of their Will, or information as to where the original is stored, life insurance information and passwords for online accounts are examples of things that would save time when it comes to probate. For more information on the Life Vault provided by Safe 4 can be found at https://www.safe-4.co.uk/sww/
