Beneficiary forms, online accounts, and where the papers are
A great deal of what people own never passes under their will at all. This is the part of preparation that gets skipped, and the part that most often goes wrong.
The will is not the only thing that decides where something goes
This is the point most worth understanding, and it is not obvious. A great deal of what people own does not pass under their will at all. Insurance policies, pensions, retirement accounts, employee death benefits and payable-on-death arrangements typically pass on the provider’s own records — the nomination or designation form somebody filled in, possibly decades ago. So does property held in certain joint forms.
The consequence is blunt: a carefully drafted will can sit alongside a designation form that sends a policy somewhere else entirely, and the will does not correct it. This is why reviewing designations is a separate exercise from making a will, and why our beneficiary checklist keeps what the provider currently records in a different field from what you would like it to be. Those are two different facts, and letting one overwrite the other would destroy the only one you can actually verify.
What our checklist cannot do is change anything. Only the provider can, and only when you ask them, on their form. The tool produces the list of questions to take to them.
Online accounts: wishes, not access
Every service has its own process for accounts after a death, they differ by company and by country, and naming somebody in a planner gives them no authority whatsoever. Some services offer a legacy contact or a memorialisation option. Some are licensed to one person and simply end. Some will act only on a court document.
We do not ship a database of provider policies, and that is a deliberate omission rather than a gap. A policy copied into a tool today and left to rot is worse than nothing, because it looks authoritative while being wrong. The planner asks you to look each one up when it matters and record the date you checked.
It also never asks for a password, a recovery phrase, a PIN or a one-time code, and there is no field to put one in. For anything holding money or crypto, record that it needs sorting out and who to raise it with. There is a rough check that flags obviously secret-shaped text, and it tells you plainly that it cannot catch everything — because it cannot, and a check that claimed otherwise would be the most dangerous thing on the page.
Where things are kept beats what things say
An index of locations is unglamorous and it is the highest-value thing on this list. Organising documents and telling trusted people where to find them is standard advice for exactly this reason, and it is the step that most often has not been taken.
Our organiser records what exists, where it is, who else knows, and what is still missing. It holds no files, no uploads, no vault codes and no key combinations.
Why the organiser never says a document is “current”
You can record the date on a document, and the index shows it. What it will not do is decide that the newest one is the one in force or that an older one has been revoked. Whether a later document replaces an earlier one depends on what it says, how it was made and the law that applies — and a date alone answers none of that.
List two wills and you get two entries and a note saying there are two. Working out which governs is a conversation with someone qualified. Having both dates written down is what makes that conversation take five minutes instead of an afternoon.
One more thing people mix up
A will concerns what happens after death. A healthcare directive — a living will, an advance directive, a health proxy, depending where you are — concerns medical care and decision-making while a person is alive. The similar names hide the fact that they do entirely different jobs, and having one tells you nothing about whether you have the other. They are separate types in the organiser for that reason.
Where the general points here come from
These sources support the narrow distinctions below and nothing further. None of them is a statement about your situation, and none of them makes this page legal advice.
- American Bar Association — Introduction to Wills
Supports: That assets passing by beneficiary designation or by titling — life insurance, retirement accounts, payable-on-death accounts, joint property with survivorship — are not governed by the will, and that reviewing designations is therefore a distinct part of preparation.
Scope: US-oriented; which products behave this way, and how, differs by country.
Checked: 5 September 2026 - Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — Planning for diminished capacity and illness
Supports: That organising documents and letting trusted people know where they are is standard preparation, and that naming a trusted contact is not the same as giving that person authority to act.
Scope: Written for a United States audience.
Checked: 5 September 2026
Beneficiary Review Checklist → Digital Legacy Planner → Estate Document Organizer →