You may have decided who inherits your favorite painting at your death, but have you determined who gets your pictures stored in the cloud? Today, almost everyone has a digital presence. Our next guest says that including these digital assets in your estate plan is essential to ensure the people you trust can identify, access, and manage them if you die or become incapacitated. Mike Switzer interviews Laird Green, a certified financial planner at Abacus Planning Group in Columbia, SC.
TRANSCRIPT:
Switzer: Hello and welcome to another edition of the South Carolina Business Review. This is Mike Switzer. You may have decided who inherits your favorite painting at your death, but have you determined who gets your pictures stored in the cloud? Today, almost everyone has a digital presence. Our next guest says that including these digital assets in your estate plan is essential to ensure the people you trust can identify, access and manage them if you die or become incapacitated. Laird Green is a certified financial planner at Abacus Planning Group. She joins us by phone now from her office in Greenville. Laird, welcome back to the program.
Green: Thanks, Mike. It's always a pleasure to be here.
Switzer: All right, so give us a definition overall of what digital assets comprise.
Green: Digital assets include any electronic records in which you might have a, right or an interest, such as you have financial related accounts. So that would be accounts like your online banking, your brokerage accounts, your credit cards, cryptocurrency, and frequent fire miles. You also may have business accounts, so that could be a website, a domain name that you own, or digital intellectual property. You could also have personal accounts, which includes your email, blogs, social media accounts, document management, phone data.
Switzer: Is there a specific law here in South Carolina that governs these types of assets when it comes to an estate?
Green: There is in South Carolina. Like most states across the country, we have adopted the revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets act, which is a mouthful, but that act governs how fiduciaries can access digital assets for people who are incapacitated or have passed away. And in conjunction with that act, Mike, South Carolina, gives fiduciaries access to digital assets through a three level priority system, which is based on your digital assets instructions that you may have set up.
Switzer: All right, well, let's walk through those three levels then.
Green: In this priority system, the first is online provider tools. So a lot of provider tools allow you to designate a digital beneficiary, like leaving a legacy contact on your Facebook account. And this designation takes priority at your death. So even if you have your will or a trust that says that you want a special person to be a fiduciary for that, this online tool would override that. Then second is that legally appointed fiduciary of your digital assets, and this is who you appoint through your will through a trust or a power of attorney. Next level that South Carolina looks at is the terms of service agreement. So, so if you don't have one of the first two, in place, the terms of service agreement is what would govern how your digital assets are allowed to be distributed at Ah, incapacity or death.
Switzer: Are there any concerns that I would need to be worried about when appointing a digital fiduciary?
Green: Yes, Mike. like we talked about a minute ago, if you haven't appointed anybody, then the terms of service agreement is what governs your assets. And some of those don't allow people to access your assets after death. So you really want to make sure you have something in place so people that you trust have control of your assets. And just be careful too, because if somebody goes in after your death and doesn't have permission to access your account, then they can be in violation of federal and state anti hacking laws, which is a criminal offense. No one wants to have to, to worry about that.
Switzer: No, indeed. All right, so we've got just a short amount of time left. Can you walk us through the steps that we need to go through to protect and preserve our digital assets?
Green: Absolutely. The first is to compile a list of your digital assets. So you want to have an inventory and a list that contains your username and passwords and security questions. So you want to keep a copy of that at home or in your safe deposit box where it's somewhat easy to access. You also second, want to maintain a backup file of digital assets. Everything might be in the cloud, but we found that it's helpful to have a backup on your local computer or another storage device for easier access. The next, you want to make sure you incorporate digital assets into your estate plan by working with an estate attorney to add that language either to a, power of attorney, a, will, or a trust. And then finally, you want to detail who inherits your digital assets. You may have digital property that has value that you want to go to a certain person, so you can leave specific instructions in your estate documents to ensure your digital assets are passed along as you intend.
Switzer: Laird, great information as always. Thank you so much for sharing.
Green: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Mike.
Switzer: Laird Green is a certified financial planner at Abacus Planning Group in Greenville, South Carolina. Remember, you can hear this show again at our webpage, SouthCarolinaPublicRadio.org, where you can hear this show again. And you can find us wherever you find podcasts. With the South Carolina Business Review, this is Mike Switzer.
The views expressed on the South Carolina Business Review do not necessarily reflect those of South Carolina Public Radio. South Carolina Business Review transcripts are intended to accurately represent the original audio version of the program; however, some discrepancies or inaccuracies may exist. The audio format serves as the official record of South Carolina Business Review’s programming.
