Executor Recovery - simultaneous death of couple or when surviving spouse passes?

k_k

Apologies in advance for the grim scenarios herein, but estate planning is a serious matter. It's certainly opened my eyes.

I've seen the family recovery plan
page, which is fine
for us (a couple) if one of us dies and the other survives.

What about when the surviving spouse dies or simultaneous deaths?

Does 1Password/AgileBits have any recommendations?

I understand AgileBits cannot recover a vault/account even if they wanted to,
which is one reason i chose 1Password.

Key Points

• we're a couple
• both are family organizers
• our executor is an attorney, thus won't be an active 'family' member
• passwords change over time (1p master password, email password, etc.)
• concerned about hardcopy emergency kit getting out of date through oversight

Is the best approach just to print the emergency kits and place in a safe (onsite),
and point the executor there? It's a bit impractical to drive over to the
attorney/executor with a new emergency kit whenever we change our master passwords,
that is, IF we remember we need to do so.

I've considered creating an 'executor' family account (also organizer) to recover
our accounts after death. This could have a very static password and be on file
with our attorney/executor. BUT, this gets complicated quickly with our email
passwords that may (will) change over time -- in order to recover an account,
one needs access to the email for that account. Creating a shared vault between
each of us and our executor seems prone to oversight, for example accidentally
moving the email login item to one's private vault or missing a key 1pw item.
This still may be a viable approach.

Any thoughts/recommendations? What do you do?

Many thanks in advance!

---

1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided

Jack.P_1P

Hi @k_k:

Glad to hear you're enjoying 1Password, and planning ahead for the situation no one wants to think too much about.

You've touched on a few different ways to set everything up, and which one you go with really depends on what you'd like to do.

If you and your wife are comfortable with your executor having access to the contents of your Private, then a copy of each of your Emergency Kits stored with with the executor would likely be your best bet. This avoids the problem you mentioned with them potentially having to recover your accounts.

Creating an organizer account and giving it to them solves the problem of having to remember to update your Emergency Kits with the executor, but then requires you to make sure that they'll have access to your email accounts.

A final option which you haven't mentioned is providing the executor with a separate shared vault between you, your wife, and the executor's account that would contain all of the information your executor would need to finish up your estate, and not making them a family organizer. This would allow you to keep items that you want to die with you (by storing them in your Private vault) separate from items your executor would need to handle your legacy (with those items stored in that shared vault). This wouldn't require having to remember to keep items up to date, but would mean that your executor would only be able to access the items that you've explicitly granted them access to.

Let me know if this makes sense, or if you'd like me to dig in further with you!

Jack

k_k

Thanks for your reply, @Jack.P_1P

I hadn't thought about keeping some items private from our executor. A good point, although i'm at a loss at the moment what items i would want to 'die with me'. Still, it's something for us to consider, thanks!

I think the reason i was shying away from a shared vault with the executor is auditability. With account recovery, i'd get an email if the executor tries to recover my account. With a shared vault, there is no such warning (as a side effect). Perhaps simply keeping the executor emergency kit in our fire safe on site suffices.

We'll discuss the various options and decide. I mainly wanted to make sure that there wasn't an option/approach i missed that would have addressed all of our concerns.

Thanks again for your input!

Jack.P_1P

You're very welcome @k_k!

That's definitely a good thought about the auditability of the executor, and thanks for bringing that up. Please get in touch if there's anything else we can help you with!

Jack