Digital Assets and Your Michigan Estate Plan

What Are Digital Assets?

Digital assets are electronically stored records, accounts, files, and rights that you own, control, or use. Some have clear financial value, while others carry sentimental, practical, or business value. Either way, they should be part of your estate planning strategy.

Common examples include:

• Email accounts and stored communications
• Online banking and investment accounts
• Cryptocurrency wallets and exchange accounts
• Social media profiles
• Cloud photo and file storage
• Websites, blogs, and domain names
• Online businesses and monetized content channels
• Digital loyalty points, rewards, and subscriptions
• Devices containing important files or account access

SSR Law Offices already highlights that digital assets can include everything from social media logins to cryptocurrency, and recommends creating a digital asset inventory as part of a complete plan. Protect Your Digital Legacy: Why Digital Assets Matter in Estate Planning 

Why Digital Assets Matter in Estate Planning

Digital assets can be easy to ignore because they are often invisible. Loved ones may not know what accounts exist, where files are stored, or how to access secure devices and platforms. Even when family members know an account exists, they may still be locked out by passwords, encryption, or service-provider rules.

That is why digital planning should be integrated into your larger estate planning framework. Without instructions, important financial assets may be lost, family photos may become inaccessible, online businesses may stop operating, and cryptocurrency may disappear permanently if private keys or recovery phrases cannot be located. 

An experienced estate law firm can help you decide what should be preserved, transferred, memorialized, archived, or deleted. This process is just as important as deciding who inherits a home or investment account.

Michigan Law and Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets

Michigan has adopted the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which gives legal authority to certain fiduciaries, such as a personal representative, trustee, or agent under a power of attorney, to access digital property under defined circumstances. The law also allows account owners to give specific instructions about how digital assets should be handled. 

The law matters because access to digital communications is not automatic. According to Michigan-focused legal guidance, a fiduciary may access the content of digital communications only if the owner expressly authorized it in a will, trust, or power of attorney; otherwise, access may be limited or denied. 

In practice, this means your documents should clearly authorize the right person to handle your digital accounts. Strong estate planning is not just about naming beneficiaries. It is also about giving legal authority to the people who need to act.

The Difference Between Ownership and Access

One of the biggest misconceptions in digital estate planning is the idea that if a family member inherits an asset, they automatically gain access to the associated account. That is not always true. Service providers often have their own terms of service, internal procedures, and documentation requirements. [web:34][web:38]

Michigan legal guidance explains that fiduciaries may need to present a written request, a death certificate, and letters of authority, a power of attorney, or a certificate of trust before a digital custodian will disclose account information. In some cases, the custodian may ask for additional proof, and if it does not comply within the statutory period, the fiduciary may need to seek a court order. 

That is another reason to work with an estate law firm that understands both probate procedure and digital asset planning. Good drafting can reduce delay and confusion when families need access most.

Digital Assets That Often Get Overlooked

Many people think only about cryptocurrency or social media, but digital assets are much broader. Valuable or meaningful digital property can include online businesses, intellectual property, digital storefronts, payment processors, subscription income, domain portfolios, digital art, and archives of family photos or videos.

Some overlooked assets have indirect value rather than market value. For example, a photo archive may be deeply important to a family, while a business email account may be critical for collecting receivables, accessing contracts, or notifying customers. In both cases, they deserve attention in your estate planning documents.

This is a natural place to add an internal link to your broader legal offerings: Practice Areas. 

How Cryptocurrency Changes the Conversation

Cryptocurrency creates a unique planning challenge because access usually depends on private keys, seed phrases, hardware wallets, exchange logins, and two-factor authentication methods. SSR Law Offices specifically notes that crypto assets can be lost forever if wallet hardware, backup phrases, and access paths are not properly documented.

Unlike a traditional bank account, there may be no institution that can simply reset access for your family. If no one can locate the key material, the asset may be permanently unreachable. That makes crypto one of the most urgent reasons to update an outdated plan with an experienced estate law firm.

Your documents should coordinate authority, storage instructions, and secure credential management without exposing sensitive information in a public-facing probate file. Thoughtful estate planning can protect both access and privacy.

Should You Name a Digital Executor?

Many families benefit from naming a trusted person to manage digital property, whether as the main fiduciary or as a specialized helper working alongside the primary personal representative or trustee. Estate-planning guidance frequently refers to this person as a digital executor, meaning someone tasked with preserving, accessing, closing, or transferring digital accounts under written authority. 

This can be especially useful when one family member is organized and trustworthy but not technically comfortable, while another understands password managers, cloud storage, digital wallets, and online business systems. The key is to coordinate authority correctly so there is no mismatch between what the plan intends and what the law allows.

An estate law firm can help determine whether this role should be built into your will, trust, power of attorney, or a separate written directive.

Create a Digital Asset Inventory

One of the most practical steps in modern estate planning is creating a digital asset inventory. SSR Law Offices recommends listing digital assets, URLs, usernames, passwords, backup phrases, and two-factor methods, and treating that list as essential rather than optional.

Your inventory should identify what you own, where it is located, how it is accessed, and what you want done with it. It should also distinguish between assets with financial value and those with personal value.

A good inventory may include:

• Account platform or website name
• Username or account identifier
• What device or app is used for access
• Whether two-factor authentication is enabled
• Where credentials are stored
• Instructions to transfer, preserve, memorialize, archive, or delete

This information should be stored securely and updated regularly. Sensitive passwords usually should not be written directly into a will because probate documents may become part of a public record. 

Use a Secure Password Manager and Storage System

SSR Law Offices recommends using a secure password manager to store access credentials and then making sure the appropriate fiduciary can gain access upon incapacity or death. That advice reflects a practical reality: an estate plan is only as good as a family’s ability to locate and use the access information when needed. 

For many Michigan families, the best system combines formal legal documents with a secure off-document storage method. In other words, your will, trust, and power of attorney should grant authority, while a password manager or protected memorandum supplies the operational details.

This is where legal drafting and digital organization work together. A strong estate law firm helps ensure they are aligned.

Include Digital Authority in Your Estate Planning Documents

Michigan guidance on digital assets makes clear that specific authorization matters. SSR Law Offices advises clients to include digital assets in a will or trust and to authorize an executor to access, preserve, close, or transfer accounts. 

Similarly, Michigan-focused analysis explains that express authorization in a will, trust, or power of attorney may be required for a fiduciary to access the content of digital communications. 

That means your documents should not rely on vague language. Your estate planning package should directly address digital property, fiduciary powers, incapacity management, and post-death administration. Readers who want a broader overview of why these updates matter can be directed to Why Every Michigan Adult Needs an Estate Plan. 

Do Not Forget Incapacity Planning

Digital asset planning is not only about death. If you become incapacitated, someone may need to access online banking, pay digital bills, manage cloud-stored business records, retrieve medical communications, or maintain revenue-generating online platforms. That makes a properly drafted power of attorney essential. 

Without adequate authority, family members may be forced into time-consuming court proceedings just to obtain access to important records or accounts. Good estate planning helps avoid that result and reduces the burden on loved ones during a stressful time.

This section is a natural fit for an internal link to a related estate planning location page, such as Estate Planning Attorney Sterling Heights, Michigan. 

Online Tools Offered by Service Providers

Some major platforms offer built-in tools that let users designate what happens to an account after death or prolonged inactivity. SSR Law Offices notes examples such as Facebook’s legacy contact and Google’s Inactive Account Manager, and advises incorporating these tools into the overall plan.

These tools can be helpful, but they should not replace formal legal documents. They work best when coordinated with your broader estate planning strategy so there is no contradiction between platform instructions and your estate documents.

Business Owners Have Even More at Stake

If you own a business, your digital assets may include customer databases, merchant accounts, accounting platforms, website hosting, cloud records, contracts, domain names, intellectual property files, and social media channels that drive revenue. Losing access to any of these can damage operations immediately.

For business owners, digital planning is an essential part of both succession planning and personal estate planning. A skilled estate law firm can help coordinate business continuity with your personal plan so nothing important falls through the cracks.

This section can naturally link to your main site as a branded reference point: SSR Law Offices. 

How Often Should You Review Your Digital Asset Plan?

Your digital life changes constantly. New accounts are created, passwords change, security apps update, devices are replaced, and assets gain or lose value. A digital asset inventory that was accurate two years ago may be incomplete today.

That is why digital asset planning should be reviewed regularly along with the rest of your estate planning documents. Reviews are especially important after marriage, divorce, business changes, major purchases, major platform changes, or the acquisition of cryptocurrency and other digital investments.

For another internal resource, you can also link readers to a local estate planning page such as Estate Planning Attorney in Dearborn Heights, MI.

Why Work with an Estate Law Firm?

Digital assets can create a false sense of simplicity because they live online, but legally and practically they are often more difficult to administer than traditional assets. Access rights, privacy rules, platform policies, encryption, probate procedure, and fiduciary authority all intersect in this area. 

A qualified estate law firm can help you identify what you own, decide what should happen to it, document your instructions clearly, and empower the right people to act when needed. Effective estate planning today must address both physical property and digital property with equal care.

Conclusion

Digital assets are no longer a niche issue. They are a routine part of everyday life and a growing part of many estates. From sentimental photo libraries to revenue-generating websites and cryptocurrency wallets, these assets deserve clear legal planning.

By working with an experienced estate law firm, Michigan individuals and families can build an estate planning strategy that protects online accounts, preserves access, reduces confusion, and ensures that digital property is handled according to their wishes. The best time to address digital assets is before your loved ones are left trying to piece everything together on their own.