There recently was in interesting thread in this forum about password managers and strategies for keeping passwords secure. Basic premise throughout was that impenetrable security is desirable, but let’s approach this from another angle.

I’ve been thinking of this topic in terms of estate planning and what would happen to my wife & family if I died suddenly. Presently I track my finances in Quicken (which is passworded) and store passwords for all my financial accounts in Keepass. I also have pdf copies of most of my account statements on an trucrypted drive. Works great, but if I suddenly passed away it could be very difficult for my wife and family to find my assets. That wouldn’t be good because while I do want to keep my finances completely secret from them while I’m alive, I also want to make sure that they are able to inherit all of my assets once I pass away.

So I’m wondering – what are the popular solutions to this problem? Either high tech or low tech solutions are fine. It occurs to me that I could entrust all my financial records to a lawyer and let him hold them until my passing, but keeping the lawyer’s copy of the records up-to-date might be problematic.

Simple make a will and putt the passwords in your will, will be opened after your death !

Lowtech solution: Keep the account and password information on Bank safe deposit box which will be handled to your family after you die.

Or you can keep the information on for example encrypted Dropbox directory which you share with your family and keep the encryption password at the bank. This way you can easily change the account information with your computer.

I've created a spreadsheet with all my banking, investment & insurance accounts listed for my wife. Saved as locked .pdf, and she knows the password to the pdf. It has account numbers (but not passwords) for each account, along with phone numbers, mailing address and website of each company. She is joint owner or POD beneficiary on each account so it should be an easy matter for her to contact the institutions and work things out.

The spreadsheet also gives tips on what to do like contact social security administration in the U.S., veteran's benefits and a few other organizations that will help out as well as close relatives who would assist her.

Put your updated records on a cd and post to your lawyer to keep in trust in the event of the unthinkable once a month or whatever. Leave instructions on where to get the disks in your will (people do forget).

Encrypt the disks if necessary and leave the key with your family, or maybe more reliable in your will.

Secrets while alive - truth when dead. Funny.

Leave the passwords & instructions w/ a trusted friend back home. Tell the family to contact the friend.

Secrets while alive - truth when dead. Funny.

Don't get the joke.