Every year, families lose access to millions of dollars in digital assets because no one planned for them. Cryptocurrency wallets with private keys stored only in one person’s memory. Online businesses generating recurring revenue that simply stop when the owner passes. Decades of family photos locked behind an account no one else can access.
Digital assets are real wealth — and they need the same legal protection as your home, your investments, and your retirement accounts. Yet most estate plans written before 2020 don’t mention them at all.
This guide walks you through every category of digital asset, what happens to each when you pass away, and the specific steps to protect them for your family.
What Counts as a Digital Asset?
The definition is broader than most people expect. Digital assets fall into five main categories:
1. Financial Digital Assets
- Cryptocurrency and NFTs — Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other holdings stored in wallets or on exchanges. Without the private key or seed phrase, these are permanently inaccessible — even to a court-appointed executor.
- Online brokerage accounts — Robinhood, Webull, and similar platforms that may not be linked to your primary financial advisor.
- PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App balances — Often overlooked, these can hold significant funds.
- Reward points and airline miles — Many programs allow transfer to beneficiaries if claimed promptly.
2. Income-Producing Digital Assets
- Online businesses and e-commerce stores — Shopify stores, Amazon seller accounts, and similar businesses have real transfer value.
- Websites and domain names — A domain generating ad revenue or leads is a business asset with market value.
- Social media accounts with monetization — YouTube channels, newsletters, and creator accounts can generate ongoing revenue.
- Digital products and courses — Intellectual property that continues to sell after the creator’s death.
3. Sentimental and Irreplaceable Digital Assets
- Photo and video libraries — iCloud, Google Photos, Dropbox, and similar services. Most have “inactive account” policies that delete data after 12–24 months of inactivity.
- Email archives — Gmail, Outlook, and other accounts often contain irreplaceable correspondence and documents.
- Social media profiles — Facebook offers a “legacy contact” designation; most other platforms do not.
4. Professional and Intellectual Property
- Software licenses and subscriptions — Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft 365, and professional software tied to individual accounts.
- Cloud-stored documents and contracts — Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive files that may contain important business records.
- Professional website and portfolio — Hosted work that establishes professional legacy.
5. Account Access Assets
- Password managers — If the master password isn’t documented, access to hundreds of accounts may be lost.
- Two-factor authentication devices — A phone or authenticator app that’s the only way into critical accounts.
- Digital identity documents — Scanned passports, titles, and legal documents stored in cloud services.
What Happens Without a Digital Estate Plan?
Federal law creates significant barriers for families trying to access a loved one’s digital accounts. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Stored Communications Act were written to prevent unauthorized access — and courts have interpreted them to apply even to executors and heirs.
In practical terms:
- Google, Apple, and Microsoft can legally deny access even with a death certificate and letters testamentary
- Cryptocurrency without documented private keys is unrecoverable — permanently
- Online businesses may lose access to payment processors, platforms, and supplier relationships
- Photos stored only in cloud accounts may be deleted under platform inactivity policies
Florida’s Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), effective 2017, gives you specific legal tools to authorize fiduciary access — but only if your estate plan explicitly uses them.
The Florida-Specific Framework
Florida’s RUFADAA creates a priority hierarchy for controlling your digital assets:
- Online tool (highest priority) — Platform-specific legacy settings, like Google’s Inactive Account Manager or Facebook’s Legacy Contact designation.
- Will, trust, or power of attorney — Explicit language authorizing your fiduciary to access specific types of digital assets.
- Platform terms of service — The default, which in most cases means no family access.
Your estate planning documents need specific digital asset language — not just a general clause. Your fiduciary needs explicit authorization for each category.
Six Steps to Protect Your Digital Assets
Step 1: Create a Digital Asset Inventory
Document every digital account, asset, and subscription: platform name, username, how to reset access, approximate value, and whether it’s transferable. Store this offline — not in a digital account someone would need access to in order to retrieve it.
Step 2: Choose a Password Management Strategy
A password manager with a documented master password stored offline with your estate documents is more secure than a spreadsheet and more recoverable than memory. Discuss with your attorney whether the master password should be held by your trustee or kept in a sealed envelope with your will.
Step 3: Update Your Estate Planning Documents
Add explicit digital asset language to your will, revocable trust, and durable power of attorney. Specific authorization by asset category gives your fiduciary the clearest legal authority under Florida’s RUFADAA framework.
Step 4: Configure Platform Legacy Settings
- Google: Inactive Account Manager — designate a trusted person and set an inactivity timeout
- Apple: Digital Legacy Program — add legacy contacts in iOS/macOS settings
- Facebook: Legacy Contact — controls memorialization and allows a designee to manage or delete the account
- Microsoft: Next-of-kin process — requires death certificate and identity verification
Step 5: Address Cryptocurrency Separately
Your heirs need the private key or seed phrase — the 12 or 24-word recovery phrase — not just login credentials. Consider a hardware wallet with documented recovery procedures, or a dedicated crypto inheritance service. Never store the seed phrase digitally.
Step 6: Review Annually
Digital assets change faster than traditional assets. Build a digital asset review into your annual financial planning meeting. A new brokerage account or significant crypto position can appear — and disappear — within a year.
How Davies Wealth Management Can Help
As a fee-only fiduciary, we coordinate the financial and planning aspects of digital estate planning alongside your estate planning attorney. We help you identify and value digital assets as part of your overall net worth, coordinate documentation with your existing estate plan, and ensure digital assets are included in your annual review.
If you haven’t reviewed your estate plan for digital assets — or if you don’t have an estate plan at all — this is a gap worth closing before it becomes your family’s problem to solve.
Schedule a complimentary review to discuss how digital assets fit into your overall plan.
Davies Wealth Management is a registered investment adviser in Stuart, Florida. This guide is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Consult a qualified estate planning attorney for guidance specific to your situation. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training.
