Digital Wrangling: Securing Your Online Legacy

0:00 Welcome to something more with Chris Boyd. Chris Boyd is a certified financial planner, practitioner, and senior vice president, financial advisor at wealth enhancement group, one of the nation's largest registered investment advisors. We call it something more because we'd like to talk not only about those important dollar and cents issues, but also the quality of life issues that make the money matters better. Here he is your fulfillment facilitator, your partner in prosperity, advising clients on Cape Cod and across the country. Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd. Welcome and thanks for being with us for another episode of something more with Chris Boyd. I'm here with Jeff Perry. We are both of the AMR team at wealth enhancement and glad to have you joining us.

0:44 Uh, this is going to be a great episode. You, you're going to enjoy this because it's going to be thought provoking and give you food for things you, the thoughts that you need to deal with. There's stuff you got to deal with. Yeah. You're going to have homework after this one. We think about estate planning all the time. And we talk about, uh, wills and trusts and power of attorney. There's a lot of important things to think about with your estate plan. But our next guest is Kate Huffnagle and she is the digital wrangler. And so joining us as Kate, Kate, thanks for being here. We just had a great webinar for our clients on a Wednesday. And, uh, if you are listening to the podcast, you'll have the opportunity to check that out and maybe watch that for an in -depth conversation or a really lesson from Kate.

1:35 But you start just Kate, thanks for being here. Welcome to the show. Oh, thank you so much, Chris. I know you and I met earlier this year, uh, in Waltham when I spoke at a financial planning conference. I really appreciate the invitation to join you and Jeff today. I went to a financial planning association of a new England, uh, program for adult, you know, for education CE and so forth. Uh, I think it might've been wicked good talks, but I'm not sure. Anyway, when you presented, I was thinking, oh, this is content. This is the kind of stuff we need to share. Cause it's outside the norm of some people think about absolutely.

2:16 And it's definitely the kind of things that we need to know. So, uh, when talking about digital assets, uh, I think, uh, I think of, we are a lot of our listeners. We'll probably be thinking, uh, we're talking about cryptocurrency, digital assets, which is a form of digital asset, but this topic extends far beyond that for the kind of things that everybody has, even if, whether you have, you know, digital cryptocurrency or not, this is the kind of thing that you need to deal with. So what are some examples of digital assets?

2:57 Yeah, I'm glad you're asking that question. So the IRS defines digital assets pretty much just as crypto, but in the world of legacy organizing, digital assets are email accounts, social media accounts, your cloud accounts, your streaming services that you're paying for the photos that you're taking on your, on your phone. Or as, or as my husband says, I happen to carry around a camera that happens to be a phone. Yes. That's more true than not. Right. Right. So all of these online accounts, whether you're getting medications on auto ship, or you're getting pet food on auto ship or toilet paper on, on auto ship, right?

3:42 All of these accounts that we take for granted are considered digital assets. So these, oh, sorry, Jeff, go ahead. I was going to say, Kate, when you said that during our client webinar, I just had this picture of, after I leave this earth of us getting these auto shipments of dog food at this house forever and ever and ever. Boxes arriving and piling up. Yeah. Well, I joke with my husband. I mean, this is, this is probably TMI, but I mean, I, I always put it out there. I mean, I get estrogen patches delivered 90 days supply at a time. And so I ask him all the time. I'm like, babe, what are you going to do with these estrogen patches?

4:23 He's like, oh, black market. Black market. What do I do with these? How do I stop them? Yeah. Yeah. And that's true. Like, um, I get, I kind of think prescriptions, uh, that's very true. And it's not getting less. It's going to be five years from now. It's going to be even more prevalent. Every, these digital assets and these things that are just automated. And how do, how do our heirs shut them off or even know they're coming? They want some of these things, right? You know, let's take, take, take one. You know, Amazon is a great example where, you know, uh, we do all, not we, but lots of people do, right.

5:05 We, we, we do, you know, collectively we do, we do shopping, uh, in a convenient way, stuff can come automatically there too. That's a good point, but, um, we might have all these things that we've already purchased through, like, I'm thinking like our Audible account is, is Amazon, our, um, our music could be Amazon, our, uh, prime, uh, videos I've purchased, you know, stuff, uh, yeah. Right. There's all these examples of things that just like, Oh, that's just one vendor. Right. That's one vendor, right? If you're, if you're an Apple person or, you know, think back in the early days of like, you know, iPod and you were, you know, buying, you know, music through iTunes or I have some of those still, right.

5:57 It's not really the way I do it anymore. I listened to Spotify, but there's another subscription. Uh, you know, is that something I need to be planning for, uh, in some of these kinds of examples? Now, the things where there's like a, I think a subscription, like. Spotify or, um, Netflix or, um, I don't know, things that just, I don't download, I don't purchase on those. I just have a monthly cost. Right. So in those cases, it's just a matter of how do I terminate a subscription when someone's passed?

6:38 Right. Cause they show up on your credit card. Otherwise you didn't build, right. Might be L2, you, or maybe not. And who has access to your email just as foundationally. Right. Yeah. You start peeling the layers of the onion and it's, it's just like, wow. Wow. So I, I had a change in cars and Sirius XM notified me. Oh, we got notified. So that one you'd trade in your car. Maybe you get, uh, they're going to be on top of it, but not everyone's going to do that. Right. So, okay. Uh, there's this, I, let's talk about the photos for a minute. I'm thinking social media and Facebook.

7:20 Um, it could be, uh, you mentioned through Apple or, you know, maybe Android, you, you know, you have a cloud account where a lot of this stuff gets saved and stored. Um, these are kind of different examples, maybe social media from the device. But, uh, can you talk a little bit about these kinds of circumstances, social media, the device, what do we need to be thinking about when it comes to our digital footprint and the legacy issues? Yeah. So, so there, there's a lot to think about. Um, so let me start with, um, I mean, I'm going to start with Apple.

8:01 I go into, um, independent living communities twice a month in, in my local neighborhood and give a monthly tech talk. Um, and I make sure once a year I touch on, um, digital legacy, but most of those residents have. Apple phones or iPhones. So let's just start there. Yeah. Um, so you're using your Apple phone. I'm an, I'm an iPhone user myself. I'm taking photos. I'm using this devices and it's a gateway to my digital life, right? I got my email on here. Um, I have my frequent flyer apps, you know, my United app, my Southwest app, et cetera, my social media apps.

8:44 Um, and so. Let's think about it. It's, it's obvious to me, but I don't think it's obvious to, to many people is, okay, can your loved one access your device? It's like a way to everything, but yeah, if you're in face, isn't there or your thumbprint isn't there or whatever, how do I get in this thing? And maybe your spouse, they might know, but if it's not your spouse, you're, you know, if you have your child or whatever the situation, probably not. Right. And, and I'll, and I'll tell you, Jeff, that my friends who are married, they have freely told me that their spouses don't have the password to their phone.

9:25 Um, now my spouse and I, that's another issue. Yeah, that's, that's, that's another, my wife will know. Cause I'm like an open book, but, uh, she's got, she got the keys to all my passwords everywhere. Right. Which, which is great. And, and I met my husband in my late forties. Um, and at that point in our lives, we're just like, well, this is who I am. You know, I don't care. Here you go. Right. Um, so having access to the device, whether it's the phone or the computer, um, I'm thinking about my 80 year old parents. They, they have a lot of documents on their computer. So every time I travel back East and I'm visiting them, I'm, I'm having that conversation is going, I'm going into their home office, trying to log on.

10:14 Do I have, they changed the password to that computer or not? Um, so let's, let's, that's, that's the first step is just thinking about all your devices. Our loved one's going to be able to access them. And, um, and then you asked, then we'll talk about Apple. So Apple has a feature called a legacy contact feature. And if you're one of the very few individuals that's reading the Apple or specifically the iCloud terms of service agreement, you know, what we love when we are alive, and that's why we use these technologies is because they're telling us, you can trust us with your data.

10:55 We're not going to share it with anybody. Um, now sure. Some of those social media sites might be tracking our behavior. What ads do we click on, et cetera, but what we post, you know, that we're, we're in charge, I think about Facebook, right? I can pay, I can post on Facebook and have all of my Facebook friends see the post. I could dig out an old photo from the nineties when I was in college and just have it post so that my college friends only see it because I'm a little too embarrassed about my perm hair. Um, or if I don't care about my privacy on Facebook, I can post so that everyone on Facebook can see it, whether they're my Facebook friend or not.

11:45 So when I'm alive, I'm in control and Facebook, that policy still applies if I'm in a coma or if I've passed away. And so if I don't be, if I'm not proactive and I, if I don't tell Facebook through the Facebook legacy contact, I want this person to be able to memorialize my Facebook account, to delete my account, or I want them to, or I want that person to be able to download everything that I've ever posted on Facebook and then delete my account. Um, if we don't tell these, these companies through these tools, then our loved ones really, um, can struggle.

12:36 And not to those that were in September, um, it was July. My tech talk theme for these independent living communities, um, was actually Facebook, right? Because Facebook's constantly changing. These older adults get a little confused and frustrated. And this one woman, 88 years old, she uses Facebook every day. It's very common. Yeah. Yep. She calls me over and she has her Facebook, um, open on her phone and she says, Kate, all of these friends of mine have passed away, but they keep showing up, how do I get rid of them? And I'm like, we'll call her Rose.

13:18 I'm like, Rose, I'm like, there's nothing that you can do. The families need to take action. She's like, this is just, she's like, this makes me sad every single day. Like, I don't, I know that they've passed. I don't need to be reminded every day when I log into Facebook. So, um, so Facebook has a legacy contact. Jeff, you ever seen that with, uh, someone you knew died five years ago and everyone's wishing him a happy birthday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like you cringe it when you see that. So this, so this, we're kind of talking about it in the context of when someone passes. But how about when there's an incapacity of a person? Um, so like, so like Rose in this example, she's alive, but she's, you know, she's getting older and she doesn't have the capacity any, any longer.

14:08 And so somebody's got her in our scenario. Her nephew has a power of attorney, durable power of attorney. Is Facebook going to care about that durable power of attorney? Are they going to honor it? If somebody comes knocking at the door and say, you know, on, on Rose's behalf, I want to download this account and terminate it. Yeah. So that's a really sticky one. Um, the terms of service agreements that I have read primarily focus on after someone passes. Right. Um, now the good news with Facebook is there is no financial string, right?

14:50 That account is free. Um, and that's now that I'm thinking about it out loud, that's probably why they don't really Facebook in particular doesn't really talk about incapacitation. Um, but I am inspiring the residents in, in these communities to have those conversations with their loved ones. Cause they may walk around with their little password book. Some of them have shared with me that they have been, that they're so safe that they've written their passwords down in code. And then I ask them, okay, but do your loved ones know the code? And they just look at me and they're like, oh my God, I never thought about that.

15:35 Um, and, and, and so they think they're being safe by writing them down in code. But then when I asked that question, okay, if you're not able to communicate, then what happens? And then the light bulb goes off. Yeah. I think that's a, uh, you know, I think that's a bigger hole than we think is out there, you know, we think of death, right. And then we think, okay, well, how are we going to handle that? But there's more often than not. Well, maybe not more often than not cause everyone passes, but many times there's this period of incapacitation and, you know, do our loved ones, do our powers of attorneys know how to access all the things we're talking about?

16:15 Right. Well, and, and hopefully the financial power of attorney at least has the knowledge and the details to access anything that has a, a bill, a financial implication with it. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I'm just, I'm listening to you guys and thinking that, uh, we keep running into this issue where people don't have checks anymore. They have bank accounts, but nobody uses a checkbook. So all they do is use it to transfer money, you know, pay bills online and so forth. And you know, that's whether it's, uh, incapacity or after one's passing, um, you get some challenges of, does anyone know how to access this stuff?

17:01 Um, I do think there are challenges when someone passes, whether, uh, banks consider you to have rights to that deceased person's online access, right? They don't want you to, well, technically if you're not on that account, that account is, or even if you are, they want you to use your own online access, uh, for that kind of stuff. But it's, um, it does, you know, it's a good example though. If, if you didn't, Kate, you gave a great example in the webinar that, you know, that you're kind of a moving story about, you know, the, the widower in this case who just didn't know that the bill was being paid online, didn't have, you know, access to the email to get the bills or whatever, and therefore the lights go out.

17:52 Yeah. The water's off, whatever it is. Yeah. Uh, so, you know, if you're not seeing that stuff in the old paper, which we, you know, we used to, when someone died, you'd still get a bill in the mail, the life insurance, wait by the mailbox. You'll learn everything in a month, but if you don't get a bill by paper anymore and you don't have a paper insurance policy and you don't have, you know, how do you know these things? And you may not even have access to where it's stored on a computer that, you know, the, the life insurance was an example I had never thought of. Um, Kate, you mentioned that. And incidentally, again, if you want to watch the video, you can go to our website and it's a wealthenhancement.com slash AMR, you'll get to our website and, or something more with chrisboyd.com and you'll get to our website.

18:46 So in any case, um, you'll want to check this out, but, uh, that was an asset that, you know, life insurance used to be delivered with a folder, you know, uh, uh, sometimes there was like a whole presentation of this very nice binder of sorts that would, how is your life insurance policy? I get an email, by the way, your, your life insurance has been issued, you know, and there's a PDF maybe attached or something. Yeah. Chris, I was on a podcast earlier this year where the podcast host talked about a five 29 account. So, um, it was a, uh, the parents were divorced.

19:31 The mom had a five 29 account for both of her daughters, the younger daughter. So the, the mom, if I remember correctly, passed away unexpectedly in July, about six weeks before the younger one was going off to college and, um, the daughters are now, you know, college age. They've, they've lost their mom. They're a mess. And now the school that she's enrolling in is asking for tuition payment. Right. And, and the daughters are like, well, mom had a five 29, but we have no idea. How do we get, we have, we have no, yeah.

20:12 Where, like what firm is it with? And exactly. So we know just not the, uh, angst of helping the loved one, but we know that hundreds of millions of dollars every year sheet back to the states across the country, because these accounts are lost in many cases. Right. And as we are accumulating more digital accounts, particularly in this age of what I call, you know, digital banking, right. People, even if it's just for CDs, Oh, you know what, I'm going to go over to this bank, I'm going to get a half a percentage point higher, or maybe I've got some eye bonds or something.

20:55 Yeah. Yeah. How to, how to love ones know about it. Right. Yeah. That's a great point. And you gotta have this, uh, list of where to access this stuff, how to get into it, where is it, uh, you know, to at least know it exists, right. To have some awareness and, you know, this is really a common, uh, circumstance in the area of finance is that when, particularly in a couple, um, one person tends to be the one who deals with that stuff and the other person deals with other stuff and, you know, we, we have our household delegation of, you know, like you do that, I'll do this and, you know, divide and conquer kind of thing.

21:36 And you might not just, oftentimes people are not aware of how, where it is, how it's structured. Um, as time passes, we spend a lot of time trying to encourage people to at least be tuned in to have an awareness, you know, you can still have one person be the primary white person, but, and you can delegate some of these things, but it's helpful to at least have an awareness. You got to have that awareness because particularly, and I think Jeff brought this up earlier with the financial accounts, there are some pretty strict rules that those financial institutions put in place, right? And so in my opinion, a good financial planner and a good estate attorney are going to be looking at how those financial accounts, um, are, are titled or, you know, who the account owner is and doing a review of those beneficiary designations.

22:33 Um, because oftentimes when those banks get that notification that someone's passed, those assets become frozen. And then that executor has to follow. It takes a long time. Yeah, it takes a long time. Right. And I didn't touch on this in the, in the webinar. Um, but last year of a report came out that says in that, that said in the immediate days and weeks of losing a loved one, families are spending over $12,000. Now that could be to pay for a funeral. It could be because, you know, 40 people have converged and traveled from around the country and they're now, you know, keeping you company, but those people need to be fed.

23:17 Um, but $12,000, I mean, that, that, that's, that's, that's a lot of money when you are out of pocket, do you have the availability to cough up $12,000? Yeah. All the things that might be needed. Yeah. That's a good point. And then if it takes, you know, uh, nine months, a year before probate is completed, um, how do we get at some of that money to pay some of the bills and, you know, some of the challenges you talked about? An interesting thing when people made some quick decisions, trying to save some money, turning off a cell phone, um, or closing out some accounts that, that, that was a, I think an interesting tidbit.

24:04 You share that again, would you? Yeah. So I had, uh, one of my early clients, um, so my business, the digital wrangler is, um, almost three and a half years old. Now, one of my first clients was a woman from the Midwest. And since my business was still kind of new and I don't live in the Midwest, I was, I asked the question, Hey, how did you find me? Um, and then I asked the second question, okay, well, why do you want to work with me? And she shared that, you know, her, her mom had been sick for two or three years. So, you know, her passing wasn't unexpected. They had time to, you know, meet with the attorneys, meet with the financial, um, advisors and get all of this information organized.

24:51 Um, but my client, after her mom passed, she's just like, I, I, I've got these other bills. I need to make sure they get paid for, I don't want to pay for my mom's cell phone. So she turned it off and she realized, you know, within a half an hour, she's like, Oh my gosh, I was trying to log into mom's Amazon account and close it. But they're sending a text message to her phone. And I just turned that off, um, or any of the other online accounts, right? Because multi-factor authentication in this day and age of, of cyber attacks is a blessing in a hurry to get rid of that phone though.

25:32 Huh? Don't be in a right. So her reasoning was sound. I don't want to pay for this bill. My mom has passed, but she realized very quickly that that was a mistake that she made. Yeah. Easy to see how that would be totally rational, but in hindsight, right. Um, and then, you know, that email address, uh, you know, keep that account open, but do you know how to get into it? Right. Or those kinds of things. Um, I was just thinking, um, today it seems like Venmo is more popular than, or, or similar venues, you know, um, I gotta say I was a slow adopter to that, but you know, Oh, now I got a Venmo account, you know, but would anyone know how to get at my Venmo, uh, the mouth?

26:27 No, that's not going to break the bank or anything. It's not my balance. There is not my bank account balance, but it's something, you know, you still have a balance in there. I'm carrying a balance and, you know, keep, keep a hundred, a couple hundred bucks, you know, right on there. So why you wouldn't want that to be just foregone, you know? Um, you talked a little bit about, um, points as well. You know, I think that, you know, my, my wife loves travel and, you know, that resonated a little bit when you were talking about, uh, travel points and some of the kinds of, um, it can be big money. You know, a lot of people, I know many of my friends have like a million miles here and we had a great episode with, was it Colin Strout, the travel guy or whatever his nickname is.

27:17 So, uh, that go see that on our past podcasts, past podcasts, if you're interested in that kind of topic. But this was an interesting take on, you know, what happens to all the value of those frequent flyer miles or, you know, your Marriott or Hilton points or whatever, or, um, you know, you're, you're just, or you're free or you're free coffee from Panera. Oh, that's a great example. Yeah. Like you're, yeah. Just like if you've been racking up those points. So what happens? They're just gone. No. Well, they're gone. If no one knows how to access them.

27:58 Yeah. Right. Um, I did not tell this story, but I had, um, I learned the story of from a, um, estate attorney in Philadelphia who I consider to be one of the nation's leading experts in digital assets. Um, but she told me a story that I think it was in the late nineties. Um, oh my gosh, I can't remember his name. This is like some famous, um, writer, composer of, of, of music. Um, and they had document, like they had these digital files of a manuscript that they were working on of something and their will said, okay, Kate has my permission to go publish this right.

28:42 As you know, as a, as a after loss of event, well, the files were password protected. And so the court authorized the executor to go hire hackers to try and get in. They, the hackers were not successful and they spent like six, they spent six figures trying to hack that to, to access the files because they, they, at that point estimated it was probably worth $20 million. So today's in today's dollars, that's probably like 50, probably more. Um, and so just because the executor has been authorized in this digital age, the authorization is no longer, sometimes it's no longer sufficient.

29:33 You've got to leave those access instructions behind. So those reward points, you know, Jeff, like you were saying, you know, people who have, you know, a million miles, you know, that that's real money. And I look at it as if, if the family knows how to access those, then they can transfer those points to other family members and then they can take a trip in their loved one's honor. I mean, what a gift that would be. Yeah. Great idea. Yeah. Nice. Well, we're just scratching the surface. You get the sense that there's a lot of, um, things that we tend to overlook and how we should deal with them is challenging.

30:22 And when, if we're not proactive, when it comes to Facebook or Google or Apple or whatever, um, we might have problems that, that those content might be lost that you, that you intend to be accessible and retained. And, um, so there's things you need to do and some actions you need to take. I'm going to start with, you have a free download on your website, the digital wrangler .com, uh, tell everyone what they can get as a starting point just to help them get organized in this regard. Yeah. So I have a freebie called my estate and life organizer. It's just, it's a one pager, but it's just a simple way to get started.

31:07 And it has prompts to indicate like, where are you saving your passwords? What bills are set up on auto pay? Cause the bills are certainly not going to be in your will. Um, what auto shipments do you have, um, set up? And then it also includes, um, some prompts with a, you know, just like a little check, check the box of what legal documents do you have? You know, do you have a medical directive or a healthcare proxy, et cetera? Because especially if you're having a medical emergency, your loved ones will need to produce that document relatively quickly.

31:52 Um, and then there's also a section of like, who are your trusted advisors? Do you have a financial planner? Who is your estate attorney? Um, so it's just, uh, something simple to get you started and get you thinking about, wow, what information will my loved ones need to know when my time comes? Cause Jeff, you said it earlier, like we're, we're, we're all going to pass away. We just don't know when it's going to happen. Yeah. And whether it's with a pad of paper or a good program, which you did talk about during the webinar, people might want to check that out, but, um, you know, you need to get started with inventorying.

32:36 Inventorying your, where you have these passwords, what they are. Inventorying, uh, the kind of devices you have and what, uh, you know, cause those might have details. People may want to retain those documents. Like you were talking about that. I don't know if everyone's worth $20 million, but you know, uh, but you still might have things there. You want that people may want to retain. Right. And, uh, you gotta start somewhere. Uh, this is a great place. That's a great resource to have a helpful tool to kind of identify some of the things to be thinking about. So, uh, go check that out. The digital wrangler.com is the website.

33:17 Um, and if you need help in the process, Kate's, uh, that's her, her role. She's, she's your helper. You can hire her directly. And, um, I don't know, I was trying to, I'm still trying to find where I can add my, on my iPhone, somebody to, uh, be my, my, my be an added person who's eligible to that contact. I might be calling you Kate. Cause I might need the help. Yeah. Well, Chris, you can always go to my YouTube channel, which is the digital wrangler, and I've got some videos where I screen share, um, and, and walk you through, cause a lot of people are learners these days, right? So if you have an apple channel like that there, you can walk it.

33:58 Pause. Let me get to that. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So for anyone listening who has an apple account or a Facebook account or a Google account, you can go to my, um, YouTube channel and look for those videos on how to designate the legacy contact for those. Great resources. Um, Kate, you're such a pleasure to make the time to thank you for being with us. Such a great guest. We love having you and hope we'll have you back again sometime. This is great content for people to be thinking about. Hope, hope everyone takes note and gets serious about it. I hope so too. Okay. Thanks everybody. If you need any help with, uh, any aspect of your own financial planning or portfolio management, that's why we're here.

34:41 We're a resource to you in thinking about any aspect of your finances when it comes to trying to put it all together and integrate the whole process, don't hesitate to reach out to us if we can be a resource to you until next time, everybody keeps driving for something more. Thank you for listening to something more with Chris Boyd. Call us for help, whether it's for financial planning or portfolio management, insurance concerns, or those quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Whatever's on your mind, visit us at something more with chrisboyd.com or call us toll free at 866-771-8901.

35:21 Or send us your questions to amr-info at wealthenhancement.com. You're listening to something more with Chris Boyd, financial talk show, wealth enhancement, advisory services, and Jay Christopher Boyd provide investment advice on an individual basis to clients only proper advice depends on a complete analysis of all facts and circumstances. The information given on this program is general financial comments and cannot be relied upon as pertaining to your specific situation. Wealth enhancement group cannot guarantee that using the information from this show will generate profits or ensure freedom from loss. Listeners should consult their own financial advisors or conduct their own due diligence before making any financial decisions.