In the first part of this series, we discussed the importance of including your digital assets in your estate plan. Here, we’ll talk about the best ways to get started with this process.

With so much of our lives now lived online, it’s vital you put the proper estate planning provisions in place to ensure your digital assets are effectively protected and passed on in the event of your incapacity or death.

However, because many types of online assets have only been in existence for a handful of years, there are very few laws governing how they should be dealt with through estate planning. And due to their virtual and often anonymous nature, just locating and accessing some of these assets can be extremely difficult for those you leave behind.

Given these unique challenges, last week we discussed some of the most common types of digital assets and the legal landscape surrounding them. Here, we offer some practical tips to ensure all of your digital property is effectively incorporated into your estate plan.  

But unless your plan also includes your digital assets, there’s a good chance this online property will be lost forever following your death or incapacity.

What’s more, even if these assets are included in your plan, unless your executor and/or trustee knows the accounts exist and how to access them, you risk burdening your family and friends with the often lengthy and expensive process of locating and accessing them. And depending on the terms of service governing your online accounts, your heirs may not be able to inherit some types of digital assets at all.

With our lives increasingly being lived online, our digital assets can be quite extensive and extremely valuable. Given this, it’s more important than ever that your estate plan includes detailed provisions to protect and pass on such property in the event of your incapacity or death.

He had insurance. It did not cover this kind of claim. He had a lawyer. The lawyer was excellent at litigation. Neither the insurance nor the litigation did anything about the assets that were now exposed during the two years the case was active.

What he did not have was a structure designed to protect what he had built before the dispute arrived.

That is the problem a lifetime asset protection trust is designed to solve.

WHAT HAPPENS TO EVERYTHING YOU HAVE BUILT WHILE YOU ARE STILL ALIVE

Most of the trust planning conversations in estate planning have focused on what happens at death: how assets transfer, how to minimize estate tax exposure, how to keep a business in the family across generations. Those are real and important questions.

But business owners face a different category of risk that traditional estate planning does not address. The risk is not death. It is what happens to everything you have built while you are still alive: a lawsuit, a creditor claim, a business dispute, or a personal liability that could attach to business assets or vice versa.

Then she tried to log in.

The bank account asked for a six-digit code sent to her mother's phone. The phone was locked with a fingerprint. The email linked to her financial accounts had been set up decades ago through a provider that had since shut down. The recovery phone number on that account was a landline, disconnected years ago.

The notebook was thorough. It did not help.

This is the digital estate planning gap most families do not see until it is already too late.

This is one of the most common oversights families face today, and it almost never appears in anyone's plan.

WHY THE PASSWORD IS NO LONGER ENOUGH

Most online accounts now require two steps to log in. The first step is the password. The second step is a verification code sent to a trusted device or phone number at the moment someone tries to access the account.

A new grandchild arrives. Your children become adults. You buy a new home, start a business, retire, remarry, or simply build more than you had a few years ago. None of those milestones feels like a reason to revisit your estate plan. Yet together, they quietly create a version of your life that your old plan may no longer recognize.

That is where problems begin.

One of the biggest misconceptions we see is the belief that once estate planning is "done," it stays done. In reality, an estate plan is only as effective as it is current. A plan that reflected your wishes five years ago may no longer protect the people you love today.

THE GREATEST RISK ISN'T HAVING AN OLD ESTATE PLAN

People often assume the biggest estate planning mistake is not having a will or trust.

In many cases, the greater risk is believing an outdated plan will still work exactly the way you intended.

Starting in 2026, the exemption rises to $15 million per person, or $30 million for a married couple, with no scheduled sunset. For business owners whose succession plan runs through a trust, that headline is not the whole story.

That is real, good news. For business owners whose estates were approaching the old threshold, it removes urgency around certain planning strategies. For families who had been considering complex gifting programs driven primarily by tax pressure, it creates more room to make decisions based on what actually makes sense for the business and the family, not what the tax calendar demands.

But the same law includes a second provision that most business owners have not heard about yet. And for any business owner with a trust in their business succession plan, it matters.

The bottom line: The headline exemption change is real. The provision business owners with trusts need to understand is the one that has not made the headlines.

You have worked on the relationship you have with them. You know which weeks are yours and how to make them count. You have figured out the handoffs, the schedules, and the way to stay present even when circumstances make it complicated.

What we find almost universally, when a divorced father walks into our office, is that the one thing he has not done is update his estate plan to match the life he is actually living. The plan from before the divorce, or the one hastily put together during it, is almost certainly not the plan his children actually need.

We sat down recently with a father who had been divorced for twelve years. He was getting remarried and came in thinking he needed to update a few things. When we completed the asset inventory together, what we found: his ex-wife was still named in his Will. She was still the primary beneficiary on multiple financial accounts. He had no idea. He had assumed the divorce decree nullified the Will. It did not touch either document.

The first kind coaches the games, makes it to the school plays, stays up late helping with the projects, and loves his family in every visible way. He thinks about what would happen if something happened to him: maybe during a long drive home, maybe after a close call, maybe in a quiet moment watching his kids sleep. He thinks about it and then moves on, because the day-to-day of being a father takes up almost everything he has.

Father's Day tends to celebrate the first kind. The presence, the showing up, the love that fills a room.

The second kind does all of that and also answers the question.

The fathers who've truly done right by their families, the ones who've given their children something that outlasts them, are the ones who made a plan. Not because they expected the worst, but because they understood that loving someone means protecting them even when you can't be there.

Having an estate plan isn't just about deciding who inherits your assets. It's about ensuring the people you trust can make important decisions, your wishes are clearly documented, and your loved ones are protected if life takes an unexpected turn.

THE EVOLVING LEGAL LANDSCAPE FOR LGBTQIA+ FAMILIES

Marriage equality was a tremendous step forward, but it did not eliminate every legal or financial planning issue families may face.

Questions about healthcare decision-making, incapacity, inheritance, parental rights, and long-term planning often extend well beyond marriage itself.

For example, legal recognition of non-biological parents may require additional planning depending on a family's circumstances. Healthcare decisions can become more complicated if the person you trust does not have the proper legal authority to act on your behalf. Assets without updated beneficiary designations or trust planning could also pass in ways you never intended.

It's a proud moment.

It's also a legal turning point that many families don't fully appreciate.

When your child turns 18, they become a legal adult. While that birthday may not feel much different than the day before, the law sees it very differently. As a parent, you generally no longer have automatic authority to access your child's medical information, communicate with their college about certain records, or manage financial matters on their behalf.

Most parents don't discover this until they're faced with an emergency.

That's why one of the most important conversations you can have before your child leaves for college has nothing to do with class schedules, meal plans, or dorm essentials. It has to do with making sure a few key legal documents are in place before they're needed.

AN ADVANCE HEALTH CARE DIRECTIVE GIVES SOMEONE A VOICE IN AN EMERGENCY

Imagine receiving a phone call that your child has been seriously injured in an accident hundreds of miles from home.