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End of Life Planning Checklist
When someone dies, their family spends weeks hunting. For the will, for the insurance policy, for the password to the phone. Most of that hunting is preventable with one binder, assembled on an ordinary afternoon. This page is the packing list. It does not have to be fancy. It has to be findable.
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The documents
Start with paper. These are the documents your family will be asked for, over and over, in the months after a death. Originals where you have them, and a note about where the original lives where you do not. If a document does not exist yet, the binder is a good reason to finally make it.
Put in the binder, or note where each lives
- Will, and any trust documents, or a note naming the attorney who holds them
- Life insurance policies, with company names and policy numbers
- Deeds and mortgage papers for any property
- Vehicle titles
- Birth certificate, marriage certificate, and divorce papers if any
- Military discharge papers if you served
- A recent statement, or just the institution name and account type, for each bank, retirement, and investment account
- Any prepaid funeral contract or cemetery deed
The access list
Modern estates are locked behind screens. A family can know the money exists and still spend months unable to reach the accounts, the photos, or the phone itself. Do not write passwords on a loose page in the binder, since binders get carried around and copied. Handle access deliberately instead.
The cleanest method is a password manager with a legacy contact or emergency access feature, so one trusted person can request entry when the time comes. If that is not your way, a sealed envelope in the binder, dated, with the master password and the phone unlock code, is honest and workable. Update it when things change, and tell one person it exists.
Make sure someone can reach
- Your phone unlock code, since the phone is the key to nearly everything else
- Your email account, which receives the reset links for all the rest
- A list of financial accounts, by institution name, without writing every password in the open
- A password manager legacy contact, or a sealed and dated envelope with the master password
- Utility, subscription, and autopay accounts, so charges can be found and stopped
- Photo storage, so the pictures are not lost with the passwords
The people
In the first hours, someone will sit with a phone wondering who to call and in what order. Write that list for them. Names, numbers, and one line on who each person is, the attorney, the insurance agent, the neighbor with a key, the friend who should hear it from family and not from a post.
The call list, in order
- Family and close friends who should be told first, with numbers
- Your doctor, and hospice if that becomes part of your story
- The funeral home you prefer, if you have a preference
- Attorney, accountant, or financial advisor, if you have them
- Insurance agent
- Employer or business partner, if working
- The neighbor or friend who has a key and can help on the ground
- Anyone who should not learn this news secondhand
The wishes
The binder answers what you have. A separate page should answer what you want, meaning burial or cremation, the shape of any service, the music, the small things that matter. Our funeral wishes page walks you through writing that page in about twenty minutes, and the front of this binder is exactly where the finished copy belongs.
If you do nothing else from this section, write down burial or cremation and sign and date it. That single line spares your family the hardest guess of the first day.
Where the binder lives
A perfect binder no one can find is the same as no binder. Keep it at home, in one fixed place a grieving person could locate in a single search, a desk drawer, a labeled shelf, a fireproof box whose key location is known. Not a safe deposit box, which can be sealed at death exactly when the binder is needed most.
Then tell two people where it is, and say the sentence out loud. If something happens to me, the binder is in the gray box in the study. Put a yearly reminder on your calendar to spend ten minutes updating it. Accounts change, people move, and a binder that is two addresses out of date still beats no binder at all, but a current one is better.
The last three steps
- Pick one fixed place at home and keep the binder there
- Tell two people where it is, out loud
- Set a yearly reminder to update it
Questions, answered plainly
Is this the same as estate planning?
No. Estate planning creates the legal documents, usually with an attorney, and this binder makes everything findable and usable. You need both, and the binder is the part you can finish this week without anyone's help.
Is it safe to write down passwords?
Not in the open. Use a password manager with a legacy contact if you can, or a sealed, dated envelope kept with the binder if you cannot. The goal is one trusted person with a path in, not a list anyone could photograph.
What if I rent, have simple finances, or am young?
The binder gets thinner, not less useful. A phone code, an email account, a call list, and one line about your wishes still spare your people weeks of hunting. Young families often need it most, because no one expects to need it.
Should the will itself live in the binder?
The original will should live wherever your attorney or your state's practice suggests, and the binder should say exactly where that is. A copy in the binder with a note about the original's location works well. This page is general information, not legal advice.