Set up a life admin account
Life admin is a huge task right? Whenever you start thinking about it, you can quickly become overwhelmed. Start with this one step, set up an email account using one of the free providers that is for all of your life admin information. It could be named something like janisdc.lifeadmin@gmail.com
Then you can send all of your life admin information to that account. Next time you need to find the house insurance documents you know where they are, they are in your life admin account. You can also tell your Executor and your Attorney where to find the documents in case they need them to help you out. This might be because you have had an accident, or have lost capacity, or you might be overseas and someone stole your wallet. Having one place for all of these documents can save you a lot of stress, and it will definitely help your Executor and Attorney one day.
But I already have an email account?
Yes, and I am sure it is full. In fact I am sure you have received over a dozen emails in the last 24 hours. You probably have more than one email account, most people have multiple email accounts, you probably first have to remember which account something is in before you begin looking for it.
Too much information can be as big a problem as not enough information. The idea is to have a life admin account where you only send things like your house insurance renewal, your car registration renewal, a scanned copy of all of the cards in your wallet, one of your current pay slips, and your statement from your superannuation company. Eventually you would email to this account a copy of your estate planning documents, along with instructions regarding where they are stored. If you have a physical document you might scan it and email it to this account so that you can dispose of the physical document. This account is not for subscription based emails (like mine), communications, receipt of regular minor bills like your phone bill, or even receipt of regular bank statements. You would send it one phone bill, or one regular bank statement, so that your Attorney and Executor know who they are dealing with.
Once it exists you will be able to use it over time, so when you come across something you might think oh yes I should file this, and send an email to your #lifeadmin account. Over time I will be sending #lifeadmin tips to my mailing list and a lot of those tips will include the instruction to save this document with your #lifeadmin documents. If you are not already part of my email list, and you would like to be, you can join at the bottom of this blog post.
This is not an active email account where you send out emails, though you might occasionally want to send a copy of a key document to yourself or someone else. This account is a filing system. When you send the email to this account if it isn’t already obvious you will make sure to type into the body of the email “this is the 2026 renewal of my house insurance with GIO” or “this is my 2025 tax return”.
But first ……
But there are a few really important things you need to do, including -
Have an excellent password, probably one generated by a password generator;
Set up all of the recovery features (so the back up email, the back up phone number, all of them); and
Set up a legacy contact.
Have an excellent password
If you use this account properly, and send your super details, insurance details, all of that life admin information to the account, then this account would be a gold mine for anyone attempting identity fraud. Do not use one of your normal safe passwords, because you will be handing this password to other people, and because your normal passwords probably aren’t safe enough for this purpose.
In order for this to work, to reduce your mental load and be helpful, you will have far too much important information in here. Choose a really excellent password.
You will then need to share the password with the people most likely to help you out, people like your Executor or your Attorney. Think about how you share that password. If you share it from your email account with lower security, to their email account with lower security, then there was no reason to set up a tight password in the first place. If you rely on sneaker net, that is physically sharing the access for the digital information, then do you trust them not to lose the physical information? Both have risks. You will need to decide which risk is the best fit for your situation.
Set up (almost) all of the recovery features
Don’t skip this part. Set up the recovery features, all of them. If you can set up multiple recovery emails then consider including an email that is not your’s, so that a third party can access it if it comes to that. This is not a time to think “I will do that later”. Set all of the account recovery that you can. Obviously, you should not set up a fingerprint or photo of you as the access point, because this is partly for Estate Planning purposes.
Set up a legacy account, except don’t trust it
Set up a legacy account. Do this now, not later. This step cannot be done by your Executor or Attorney later, and often even if your Estate does convince the provider to release the details they are released in such a nonsense fashion that they aren’t worth a lot. Set up a legacy contact so that they can actually get access to your account and anything saved there.
Do warn your legacy contact, though, that once you have died the legacy version of the account may be considerably more difficult to operate than the usual version of the account. This is why you are having a completely separate account, if you like you could even make it a joint account with your Attorney. The goal is for them to have unfettered access, as if they are you, to the account. This probably means that they shouldn’t notify the account holder that you are dead.
However, set up the legacy account because sometimes third parties are trying to be helpful and they notify the account holder that you are dead. If there is no legacy contact, and they are convinced that you are in fact dead, then access may simply be cut off altogether. Set up the legacy account, but warn your legacy contacts to do their research before notifying the account holder of your death.
Estate Planning is more than Wills
Do you know about the free Facebook group for Estate Planning? If you head over to Facebook and search for the group name in Groups you will find it, or you can click on the button below. Just make sure that you also answer the questions or the admin assistant will reject your application to join.
If you are already in the group, you can also join the free email list with #lifeadmin and estate planning tips by clicking on the other button below.
