Kansas and Missouri Estate Planning

Can My Family Inherit My Frequent Flyer Miles?

Not all assets can pass at death.

Whether for business or pleasure, you are a seasoned traveler.

You have racked up miles and miles of airline points.

You have and will use many of these.

What happens if you do not use all of those miles before you die?

What becomes of them?

According to a recent The Wall Street Journal article “A Thorny Inheritance Issue: Frequent-Flier Miles,” your frequent fliers miles will likely die with you.

Such is the policy of British Airways, Korean, Singapore, and Qantas.

Delta has a small exception for those who receive prior written permission from a vice president or above before they die.

Many airlines make their flier rewards non-transferable.

United and American are two that have this policy.

United and American may be making exceptions with fees in the case of death and specific documentation; however, it is not guaranteed the transfer will take place.

Southwest gives others 24 months to use miles after the owner dies, if those others have the correct login information.

For Emirates and All Nippon, you must request transfer within six months of the death of the owner.

Transfer fees may greatly diminish the reward for many who succeed to the transfers.

Two airlines have a preemptive workaround.

Jet Blue and British Airways allow families to link accounts to “pool” their miles and points.

This, too, must be done before the death of the owner.

The strain of working with airlines while still grieving a loved one should be avoided.

Although you cannot change airline policy and airlines do have the right to make their own policies, there are some steps you may be able to take.

What are they?

Give explicit instructions regarding transfer regarding airline miles in your last will.

This could prove helpful for those who review requests case-by-case.

Provide account information for the airlines.

This would include access to the password, credit care, and email associated with the account.

Accordingly, make sure someone has your account information, passwords, and access to the credit card and email that is associated with the account.

Do not pay to transfer miles.

What if the airline makes you pay?

Be sure it does not wipe out the account miles.

Finally, if the airline allows family sharing, sign up now.

Acting proactively can help your family navigate these situations and receive the benefit of your rewards if at all possible.

After all, you earned them.

Reference: The Wall Street Journal (June 19, 2019) “A Thorny Inheritance Issue: Frequent-Flier Miles.”

Are "Digital Assets" Part of My Estate?

Do not neglect your digital assets.

So much we do is online or on our devices.

We bank online.

We communicate online.

We even share and store photos and videos online.

Would your loved ones have access to these if you died?

Or would they be lost?

According to a recent The Street article titled “Estate Planning in a Digital World,” estate planning for your digital assets is more important than ever before.

While physical assets are relatively straightforward, digital assets can bring complications.

How so?

Digital assets can change.

Another entity may own the platform where the assets reside.

Intellectual property and privacy laws can create legal complications.

This is especially true if the service provider has no policy on what happens when the user has passed away.

Be sure to read any terms of use and plan accordingly.

Some states, like Kansas and Missouri, have laws to help guide estate planning for digital assets.

Working with an experienced estate planning attorney is key to a thorough understanding of the laws of your estate and how to create a plan to include these considerations.

Other things you can do to help?

Keep an inventory of all digital assets and their passwords.

Your list should be kept updated and in a secure location where your family or executor will have access to it when you pass away.

Personally, I have had mine stored on the online program LastPass for years.

Do not forget to legally designate a person to handle your online files and accounts when you pass away.

The more detailed you are in your instructions, the easier it will be to for your loves ones to follow your final wishes regarding your digital assets.

Taking steps now to be organized and thorough will make the task of creating a plan for your digital assets less daunting and more successful.

Reference: The Street (June 3, 2019) “Estate Planning in a Digital World”

Why Should I Make Digital Asset Passwords Part of My Estate Plan?

Passwords are important in passing digital assets.

We live in a digital age.

Banking can be done online.

You chat with friends online.

Photos can be shared and stored in the cloud.

According to a recent Kiplinger article titled “Your Estate Plan Isn't Complete Without Fixing the Password Problem,” these facts alone make digital estate planning important.

Without passwords you may leave your stocks, investments, bank accounts, and credit cards accounts inaccessible when you die.

This will place your loved ones and your executor in a difficult position.

How can they access your funds to make necessary payments and disbursements?

You should include your passwords in your estate plan now.

Death can call unexpectedly.

Ask the family and clients of Gerry Cotton.

He was the CEO of a cryptocurrency exchange.

When he died, the password to the cold locker storage for the exchange was lost.

This left $190 million in investor funds inaccessible.

Yikes!

What can you do?

One simple way is to provide passwords to a trusted family member.

Another option is to write down the passwords and keep them in a safety deposit box.

When you die or are incapacitated, the executor or the power of attorney can then access the safety deposit box.

Although this is a more secure option, it will take more effort and vigilance to keep passwords updated.

Practical tip: contact the financial institution where your safety deposit box is located and follow its required process to ensure that your executor or power of attorney is authorized to have access right now.

The third option is to secure them in a digital wallet.

What is a digital wallet?

It stores your passwords in an encrypted file on the cloud.

I have used LastPass for years.

If you choose that option, merely leave the one "master" password with your executor.

Whatever method you choose, prioritize digital assets in your estate planning.

Reference: Kiplinger (April 19, 2019) “Your Estate Plan Isn't Complete Without Fixing the Password Problem”

Why Would a Young Adult Need an Estate Plan?

Estate planning is an important part of being an adult.

Maybe you just turned 18.

Perhaps you have been a legal adult for a few years now.

You are young with your whole life ahead of you.

Estate planning can wait, right?

According to a recent Forbes article, titled “Reviewing Your Financial And Estate Planning Checklist,” this is not true.

My maternal grandfather put it this way: "The old must die, but the young may die."

Age and income should not deter you from estate planning.

As an adult, you have assets and, at the very least, yourself.

These facts alone form the basis for your estate planning need.

All responsible adults prepare for the unpleasant possibilities and realities of their future.

What should you do?

A last will and testament is the basic tool for asset distribution.

Next, you should create a durable power of attorney.

You should have one for your finances and one for your health care.

What do these accomplish?

They will allow you to designate a trusted individual to act on your behalf to make your personal, health care, and financial decisions should you be incapacitated.

Do you have retirement accounts, life insurance or transfer on death accounts?

If yes, these do not pass through your last will and testament.

Should you die, the assets or benefits will pass via the beneficiary designations on the account.

These are not something you should fix and forget.

You need to review and update your estate plan and the "alignment" of your assets, especially if there has been a birth in the family, a death, marriage or divorce.

You may consider having a living trust.

What does this do?

It allows you to provide direction for distribution of assets held within the trust without being subject to probate proceedings.

Do you have digital assets?

These include social accounts, digital files, passwords, photos, emails, video gaming accounts, online storage, websites, blogs, and online document.

If yes, do not neglect them.

They are an important part of your estate.

Create an asset inventory, as well as how to access each.

Update regularly.

Take steps now to protect yourself and what you have.

Contact an experienced estate planning attorney without delay.

This is not a DIY project, if you want to do it right.

Reference: Forbes (January 4, 2019) “Reviewing Your Financial And Estate Planning Checklist”

Is it Safe to Store My Will Online?

Storing your estate plan online requires great care.

It seems as if everything is online these days.

What about your estate plan?

According to a recent CNBC article titled “Here's what you need to know before storing your will online,” several companies are offering services for storing assets online.

Accessibility is one of the greatest benefits of storing assets online.

As the account owner, you can do this anywhere there is internet connection.

However, storing your estate plan online should not be done without careful forethought.

What should you consider?

You should be organized.

It can be a helpful tool for including your online accounts in your estate plan.

Failing to include these may mean they are doomed to be destroyed.

You should also provide specific permissions for accessing digital assets.

Why?

Although the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) allows fiduciaries to access certain digital assets in 45 states and the District of Columbia, it does not include full access to your assets like your emails, social media accounts, and texts.

If you want these to be accessed and controlled by others, you will need to specifically relay this information in your will or as specified by governing statutes.

When you have created your estate plan, you should discuss your wishes with your executors.

Your executor should have the logins and passwords for your accounts.

If your account has security questions, you should also provide the appropriate answers.

Before you decide on a specific online storage provider, be sure you understand their security protocols.

Because estate planning contains sensitive information, the service should provide encryption and comply with all compliance protocols.

In addition to storing your estate plan and digital assets online, you should also have a physical document kept in a safe location.

The physical signed documents may be required by institutions for your health care directive or your power of attorney.

Similarly, many states require the physical, original copies of your other legal documents.

You should store these in a secure location with your other important documents, like your marriage license and your birth certificates.

Is a safe deposit box a good option?

Not typically.

Why?

It will be difficult for your agents to access these without the documents granting them specific authority.

They will not have the documents required to access the documents because they would be locked in the box.

Yikes!

Can you store your estate plan and digital assets online?

Certainly.

Nevertheless, you should be sure your estate plan is secure and comprehensive wherever stored.

Storing your plan online does not mean you can ignore or dispose of your signed, physical originals.

Remember: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When making your financial, tax and estate plans, do not go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS (and throughout the rest of Kansas and Missouri), visit our estate planning website and be sure to subscribe to our complimentary estate planning e-newsletter while you are there.

Reference: CNBC (July 25, 2018) “Here's what you need to know before storing your will online”

What do I need to Know About Estate Planning for "Digital Assets"?

Digital assets are an important part of estate planning.

We live in a digital world.

We can carry the internet around with us in our pockets.

In fact, more than three-fourths of Americans access the internet daily.

According to a recent Forbes article titled “You Should Have An Estate Plan For Your Facebook Account,” more and more of our personal data and information is being stored online.

It can make life easier.

Unfortunately, if you do not make proper plans, this "benefit" can actually make the lives of your loves ones far more complicated when you pass away.

They may need to access your online banking, email, brokerage accounts, social media accounts, or frequent flier miles.

Family photos are primarily stored on devices or on the web, too.

Without access to these, your family will lose them forever.

What should you do?

Include your digital assets in your estate planning.

Gather any necessary information such as accounts and passwords, then give your executor access.

Even if they have your passwords, it may not be enough.

The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) has been adopted by many states.

This statute requires express authorization before a vendor must allowing access to digital content.

This means you cannot access the information merely because you are related or the executor of an estate.

Does this sound like a lot of work?

It can be.

It can also be made easier.

How?

You can use a password manager to maintain records of all of your online accounts.

You can set them up to provide access to an individual should you die or become incapacitated.

Work with an experienced estate planning attorney to ensure the language in your will, trusts, or power-of-attorney documents includes provisions for granting access to your personal representative, trustee, and attorney in fact.

Review any policies for online service providers with your attorney regarding the disability or death of an owner.

Not all policies are the same.

Your attorney can help you navigate the specific policies in your various plans.

Remember: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When making your financial, tax and estate plans, do not go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS (and throughout the rest of Kansas and Missouri), visit our estate planning website and be sure to subscribe to our complimentary estate planning e-newsletter while you are there.

Reference: Forbes (June 3, 2018) “You Should Have An Estate Plan For Your Facebook Account”

How Do I Plan for Digital Assets?

Digital property will only continue to grow.

Do you have a cell phone or computer?

Are they filled with pictures or other files?

Maybe you run several social media accounts.

Do these really need to be considered in your estate planning?

According to a recent Morningstar article titled “Do You Have a Plan for Your Digital 'Estate'?,”  you should.

How should you do this?

First, take inventory of your digital property and accounts.

Click here for the "Virtual Asset Instruction Letter" we provide to our clients to assist with this inventory and process.

This should include phones, computers, cloud files, and social accounts like LinkedIn or Facebook.

Then you will need to determine what is important?

What valuable or sentimental files are on your computer or phone?

Who would you want to have access to what?

After you have made a comprehensive list, you will need to determine whether your loved ones would be able to access what they need and when needed.

You should compile locations, user names, and passwords.

Like any estate planning document, this should be kept in a secure location like a home safe or safe deposit box.

You should keep an electronic list as well.

Be sure to password protect it and back up the files.

The fiduciary will need to access it when it comes time to execute your estate plan.

Be sure to designate an individual to handle your digital assets according to your wishes.

Formalize your digital estate plan and be sure to provide proper authorization for your selected fiduciary to perform his or her duty.

Contact an experience estate planning attorney to help you get this right.

So, how do you find an "experienced" estate planning attorney?

First, ask around. Friends, family and other professional advisors are trustworthy sources.

Second, conduct an "organic" search on "Google" for "estate planning" near you (e.g., "Estate Planning Anytown MoKan").

Third, either way, verify! Check out the education, experience, ratings and client reviews of any attorney before you contact him or her.

How?

Two helpful online resources are just a mouse click away to assist with your due diligence:  Avvo.com and Lawyers.com.

Check any Avvo ratings, client ratings/testimonials and attorney endorsements on Avvo.com and any "peer ratings" by judges/other attorneys and any client ratings/testimonials on Lawyers.com.

In fact, I use both of these services to thoroughly vett attorneys before referring members of our "client" family for legal help in other areas of law or for matters in jurisdictions outside Kansas or Missouri.

Remember: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When making your financial, tax and estate plans, do not go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS (and throughout the rest of Kansas and Missouri), visit our estate planning website and be sure to subscribe to our complimentary estate planning e-newsletter while you are there.

Reference: Morningstar (December 15, 2017) “Do You Have a Plan for Your Digital 'Estate'?”

What is the Latest on Digital Assets Law?

That is actually a timely question, especially since I have not written on the topic since April.

A new California law went into effect recently with "tech" backing. The law provides a road map of sorts for handling the emails, social media accounts and other digital assets when the owner dies.

In practice, the law creates a three-tiered approach when designating who has the authority to access such online data postmortem.

Here is how the tiers work:

1. The "default" is to consider any intent expressed by the decedent user via an online tool.
2. If there is no intent expressed, then the fiduciaries and data-holding companies would consider any direction left in a will.
3. Failing either the default or testamentary directions, the terms of service for each individual site will be control.

A recent article in The Recorder, titled “Digital Assets Bill Gets Governor's Signature,” reports that the new law is a stricter version of model legislation known as the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act.

For its part, the model legislation has been used as a template for similar laws in 11 states.

Digital asset legislation has been introduced in more than 18 other states, according to the Legislature and the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The bill received strong support from social media and search companies such as Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, along with other data-holding companies and tech trade associations.

This latest California law offers liability protections for companies that comply in good faith with the data-handling provisions. Understandably, the only exceptions are in cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct.

The new law was not without opposition.

Civil liberties and privacy groups believed the broad grant of immunity is overreaching.

In addition, they argued that an online tool should not be given precedence over a decedent's will, power of attorney or other legal documents.

As you can see, the law regarding estate planning for digital assets continues to develop.

Stay tuned. 

Remember: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When making your financial, tax and estate plans, do not go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS (and throughout the rest of Kansas and Missouri), visit our estate planning website and be sure to subscribe to our complimentary estate planning e-newsletter while you are there.

Reference: The Recorder (Sept. 26, 2016) “Digital Assets Bill Gets Governor's Signature”

What Estate Planning Steps Should I Take Regarding My Digital Assets?

As I noted in a blog post last week, Oregon has passed a law authorizing appointment of a "fiduciary" to access digital assets if citizens of that state so provide in their estate plans.

The new law takes effect on January 1, 2017.

In fact, other state legislatures are attempting to address access to digital accounts after the owner passes away.

Some have managed to pass laws granting access to an estate executor, but most have not passed anything yet.

Consequently, until your state steps up, you will need to follow the process outlined by the various tech companies for each account you have.

CNET recently made that easier by detailing the steps to take for some common services in “How to prepare for your digital afterlife.”

Here is a quick look at the actions you should take now:

Google

 You can take advantage of Google’s "inactive account" service.

The service notifies folks you select that your account has been inactive for a while.

Thereafter, they will be given access to your account for three months.

Microsoft

Your relatives will have to follow a "next of kin" process.

After completing that, account data will be provided on a DVD.

Yahoo and Twitter

Neither of these companies has a set process.

Takeaway: You will have to provide someone with your login information, if you want them to have access to the accounts after you pass away.

Facebook

You can designate a "legacy contact" who will have some access to your account. 

Here is another idea, if all of the above sounds like a hassle.

Consider using an online password manager (e.g., I use "LastPass") to store your online account information in one place.

That way, your designated person will be able to assess everything with just the use of a "master" password to open the manager.

While you are at it, consider contacting your state legislators and asking them to get to work on the issue. 

Remember: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When making your financial, tax and estate plans, do not go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS (and throughout the rest of Kansas and Missouri), visit our estate planning website and be sure to subscribe to our complimentary estate planning e-newsletter while you are there.

Reference: CNET (March 2, 2016) “How to prepare for your digital afterlife.”

What is the Latest On Digital Asset Laws?

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know that digital assets are a "hot topic" in the estate planning world.

Nearly everyone is online these days.

So, when someone dies, what happens to their "virtual" life and assets? 

In Oregon, recently signed legislation will go into effect on January 1, 2017, to protect the "digital assets" of its citizens.

kitv.com reported this new development in an article titled "Governor signs new law which protects digital assets."

What does the law provide?

To gain access to the digital assets of a decedent, he or she must affirmatively provide for fiduciary access by specific provision in appropriate estate planning documents.

What if an Oregonian fails to do so?

Then access to his or her digital assets defaults to the terms of the various service agreements.

As you know, other states are addressing this issue.

Stay tuned.

This issue is not going away anytime soon. 

Remember: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When making your financial, tax and estate plans, do not go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS (and throughout the rest of Kansas and Missouri), visit our estate planning website and be sure to subscribe to our complimentary estate planning e-newsletter while you are there.

Reference: kitv.com (March 8, 2016) "Governor signs new law which protects digital assets"