A death binder is an instruction manual for a person’s life that includes everything from a copy of a will, powers of attorney, financial documents, letter of wishes, funeral arrangements, household information and all forms of identification.oonal/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
After watching friends and family go through the laborious process of managing an estate, more executors are insisting on completed death binders before agreeing to take on the role, say experts in the death planning industry.
“I hear this all the time from executors, … ‘Unless you do the preparation, I will not be your executor,’” says Rosemary Pahl, Calgary-based author of The Departing Details Workbook.
A death binder is an instruction manual for a person’s life that includes everything from a copy of the will, powers of attorney, financial documents, letter of wishes, funeral arrangements, household information and all forms of identification. Most clients start working on their death binders after drafting their wills and powers of attorney, experts say.
As a former intensive care registered nurse, Ms. Pahl witnessed family turmoil firsthand with patients placed in palliative care and their surviving family members struggling with options and finding key documentation.
“They have to make decisions and they don’t know what the person wanted,” she says.
Ms. Pahl then realized her own family didn’t have great clarity on final arrangements either. After retiring, she made it her mission to clean up the family’s financial affairs and create a binder. The process took her three years as she kept thinking of more issues to address. She marvelled at how much time it took her to find her own required documents and get professional advice on funeral arrangements, her finances, and to discuss her wishes with her family.
“Then, I imagined [what if] that was my executor or children trying to find things when I had difficulty myself,” says Mr. Pahl, whose personal death binder project spurred the start of her company. Through word of mouth and a business partnership with an e-commerce entrepreneur, she has sold more than 10,000 of the Departing Details binders worldwide to date.
More diverse assets mean more items to track
More people are using death binders as a way to keep track of the more diverse set of assets people have today, says Tim Hewson, founder and chief executive officer of LegalWills in Toronto.
“If we think about our parents, they had a house, a bank account with a monthly statement sent by mail,” he says. “We have online accounts, revenue from a blog, photos, crypto [and] rewards points. The expectation that an executor could come in and make sense of all of this is inconceivable.”
Mr. Hewson says younger generations are turning to online death binders, where information can be updated more easily. With paper-only copies, many are left to wonder if they’re reading the most up-to-date information.
His company’s death binder, called LifeLocker, is a service offered to those who draft a will through LegalWills. He says LifeLocker is encrypted in the cloud. The client creates a digital keyholder (executor) who can access the information upon the client’s passing.
“Then, we have safeguards to make sure the keyholder doesn’t access it prematurely or someone who isn’t your keyholder doesn’t access it,” he says.
One issue with some online death binders is whether the company will even be around when the person dies, Mr. Hewson says.
“You need to know the company is going to be there when you die,” he says. “So, there has to be ongoing engagement or a subscription keeping people involved in the service.”
He says that with LifeLocker, clients receive annual reminders to verify and update their information.
Christa Ovenell, a licensed funeral director and death doula at Death’s Apprentice Education and Planning in Vancouver, says the process of getting affairs in order is daunting for many. Buying a binder is one thing, doing the work is another, she notes.
“It’s hard work that’s easy to avoid,” she says, and sometimes online binders exacerbate that feeling of reluctance.
For example, Ms. Ovenell finds that seniors tend to be distrustful of keeping sensitive data in the cloud, often commenting that it’s only useful if folks know how to access it.
A hybrid paper and online approach
While online makes it easier to make changes on the fly, Ms. Pahl finds most clients download the PDF, save it in their documents, but still print out the information to place in a physical binder with all the other documents.
“Some things are just not fill-in-the-blanks. Some things are producing your birth certificate and putting it in the binder,” Ms. Pahl says, adding that she keeps those documents in plastic sleeves and stores the binder in a home safe.
Once the binder is completed, the final step is ensuring the executor knows where to find and how to access it.
“This is an act of love and kindness for your family,” Ms. Pahl says. “You don’t want to be remembered as someone who left everything in chaos.”