Digital Assets and Your Will: What Happens to Your Online Life When You Die

Traditional estate planning was built around physical things: property, bank accounts, jewellery, furniture. But a significant portion of modern wealth — and modern life — exists entirely online. Digital assets are real assets, with real value, that can be lost forever if your will and your executor don't know they exist.

What Counts as a Digital Asset?

The category is broader than most people expect:

• Cryptocurrency — Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other holdings held in wallets or exchanges
• Online investment accounts — stocks, ISAs, and trading platforms accessed digitally
• PayPal and digital payment balances — often overlooked but potentially significant
• Domain names and websites — which can have commercial value
• Cloud-stored media — photographs, videos, documents stored on iCloud, Google Drive, or similar
• Social media accounts — including content with ongoing monetisation
• Loyalty points and rewards balances — airline miles, cashback balances, store credit
• Purchased digital content — ebooks, music libraries, software licences

The Legal Problem

UK inheritance law was largely settled in 1925. It has no specific framework for digital assets. For physical assets, ownership transfers through the estate. For digital assets, ownership often doesn't transfer at all — it terminates. Many platform terms of service explicitly state that accounts are non-transferable and will be closed on death.

This means cryptocurrency not properly documented in a will may be permanently inaccessible. Cloud photos may be deleted. Social media accounts may be memorialised or closed, with content lost. The MoneyHelper guide to digital assets after death sets out the practical steps families can take, but prevention is always easier.

Cryptocurrency and Your Will

Cryptocurrency is unlike any other asset. It is held in a digital wallet secured by a private key or seed phrase. Without access to that key, the assets are gone — permanently and irreversibly. Unlike a forgotten bank account, there is no institution to contact and no regulatory route to recover funds.

If you hold cryptocurrency, your will should acknowledge the existence of these assets and your executor should know where to find access instructions — stored securely but separately from your will itself, in a location you've disclosed in advance.

What Your Will Should Do

A will that addresses your digital estate should:

• Acknowledge the existence of digital assets as part of the residuary estate
• Authorise your executor to access and manage digital accounts on your behalf
• Be supplemented by a separate, secure record of accounts, credentials, and access instructions

Wills Assured includes digital asset provisions as part of every will's residuary estate clause, and allows you to document specific digital gifts in the specific gifts section. For a secure way to store access information separately from your will, a password manager with emergency access functionality — or a sealed letter stored with your original will — is the most practical approach.