Free Digital Asset Inventory Tool from Estate Map

Back in June, I wrote an Introduction to Estate Planning for Digital Assets. Part of the discussion centered around the importance of maintaining a comprehensive digital asset and account inventory and making that inventory available to your successors.

One of the comments on my post was from Joe Henderson, a Minneapolis estate planning attorney and President of Estate Map, which provides a new online estate planning solution available to attorneys and their clients to store and pass on important estate information. I plan to look into reviewing and possible offering Estate Map as a benefit to estate planning clients interested in the services that they have to offer.

In the meantime, Estate Map is offering a new helpful Digital Asset Inventory tool. The online tool allows you to enter digital accounts and usernames by category (e.g. social network, video, e-mail, gaming, etc.). You can then print the inventory or download to PDF. You will likely want to use the list that is generated as a starting point for a more comprehensive set of instructions or for use as a checklist for entering information into Estate Map.

Separately, the Estate Dispatch blog sponsored by Estate Map reports that seven states now have laws on the books that address digital assets. Illinois is not one of those states and I have seen no specific Illinois legislation proposed in this area just yet. My expectation is that the law in this area will evolve very slowly and uncertainty will continue to linger.