09/21/2026
A woman we worked with lost her husband suddenly. In the fog of those first weeks, she went looking for the ordinary things, the photos of their kids on his phone, the email where the mortgage statements lived, the login to the account that paid their bills. Locked out of nearly all of it.
Not because he hid anything. Because no one had the legal authority to get in. This is the part of "getting your affairs in order" almost no one thinks about: your digital life. Your email. Your photos. Your cloud storage. The password manager holding everything else. Maybe a little crypto. When you're gone, or if you're incapacitated, your family can't just call the company and ask nicely.
Terms-of-service agreements and privacy laws can freeze them out completely. Florida actually has a law for this: the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740, Florida Statutes). It lets you give the people you trust legal authority over your digital accounts but here's the catch: it works best when your estate planning documents specifically grant that access.
If your will, trust, and power of attorney are silent on digital assets, your loved ones can be left knocking on a door that won't open. Sorting this out isn't morbid. It's a kindness. It means the people you love aren't locked out of your memories and your paperwork on the worst week of their lives. A small start this week: make a simple list of your key digital accounts and where they live.
Then let's make sure your documents actually give someone the authority to reach them. Educational only — not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created here.
