What to Store in Your Vault

The digital vault is where the practical side of your estate lives: the documents, account information, and instructions your family will need but currently could not find without you. This article covers what to put in it.

The principle: store what they would have to ask you

A simple test for what belongs in the vault: if you were unreachable tomorrow, what would the people handling your affairs have to ask you, and be unable to? Everything that fails that test belongs here, encrypted and waiting.

What to store

Core legal documents. Your signed will's location, any trust documents, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, and where the physical originals are kept.

Financial map. A list of accounts and institutions (banks, retirement, investments, insurance). You generally do not need to store full passwords here; the goal is a map so nothing is invisible, not a master key to everything.

Property and obligations. Real estate, vehicles, the existence of any loans or recurring obligations, and where the related paperwork lives.

Identity and important records. Where to find documents like the deed, insurance policies, birth and marriage certificates, and similar records, by location rather than always the documents themselves.

Digital life instructions. Which online accounts matter, what you want done with them, and any subscriptions or services that should be closed.

Personal instructions. Funeral or memorial preferences, care instructions for pets, who to notify, and any wishes that are not legal documents but matter deeply.

Letters of explanation. Short notes that explain context: why an account exists, why you made a certain decision, where something physical is hidden.

What not to store

• Things that need to stay current elsewhere. Beneficiary designations belong on the accounts themselves; the vault should point to them, not replace them.
• Your recovery phrase for this account. Do not store the LivingWill recovery phrase inside LivingWill. It is the key to the vault; it cannot live in the locked box it opens. Keep it on paper, offline.
• Secrets that endanger others if exposed early. Use scheduled or posthumous release for sensitive disclosures rather than leaving them where they could surface at the wrong time.

Organize for the person who will use it

The vault is not for you. It is for someone acting on your behalf, possibly while grieving and stressed. Organize accordingly:

• Use clear, plain labels a stranger could understand.
• Add a short note to each item explaining what it is and what to do.
• Keep one top-level "start here" item that summarizes the rest, like a table of contents for your affairs.
• Update it when life changes, not once and never again.

How it stays protected

Everything you place in the vault is encrypted on your device before it reaches us, so we store ciphertext only and cannot read it. Who can access it later, and when, is controlled by you and by the posthumous access process with its waiting period. The companion articles sharing during life vs after death and the audit log explain that control in detail.