Here’s what you'll get when you open an account at FamilyAndHeirs.com: 

  1.   A complete Pre-Planning Service where you to provide answers to the important questions your family will have when you are gone; and where you can upload the important documents they will need. You can update this information as often as necessary. We'll provide:

     a.  Our online comprehensive Pre-Planning Questionnaire, where we ask many questions in many areas.  These are the questions your family and heirs should have asked, but likely never did.  And the answers to these questions are typically not found in anyone's Will or Trust.

     b.  Secure Document Storage for your vital papers, such as your Will or Trust, your Deed or Lease, your Marriage Certificate (or Divorce Decree), your Insurance documents, passport, naturalization papers, military DD214, and any special letters or cherished photographs;

  2.  Our unique “Read-Only” password that you can give to your trusted heirs, which will enable them to read your answers and see your uploaded documents, but not allow them to add, delete, or modify anything.

     a.  You will receive two different passwords when you join up:

(i) Your Account password, which you will use for total access to your account. The Account password will allow you to enter and edit all your information, including all of your answers to our Pre-Planning questions as well as to upload several important documents (including your Will or Trust, if you choose), some special letters, and some significant photos.

(ii)  Your “Read-Only” password, which you may give to one or more trusted heirs, which will allow them to view your answers to the Pre-Planning questions and the files you have uploaded, but they will not be able to change, modify, delete or add anything.

  3.  Your confidential information is held in encrypted, secured, password-protected private storage.  We believe that your confidential information is your confidential information and is none of our business.  Our site was custom-written and custom-built so that even FamilyAndHeirs.com personnel cannot see your answers in our Administrative Panel.  We cannot even see your passwords; and

  4.  We value your confidentiality and privacy. If you will look at the first line of our Privacy Policy, it reads: “We will not sell, lend, give, or share your private information with anyone for any reason.” 

We know that when you're gone your relatives will have so many questions they wish they had asked.  But we also know that this is a very difficult and awkward conversation for both them and for you.  So WE will ask many Pre-Planning questions, and you can choose to answer all or some of them. These are questions such as, “Do you prefer to be buried or to be cremated?,” “Do you want a religious funeral or a Celebration of Life?,” “Where do you have bank accounts?,” “What Life Insurance policies do you have?,” “What are your wishes for re-homing your dogs and cats?,” “What charities do you wish to support?,” etc.  There are many such questions and these are questions that are typically not answered in any Will or Trust.  We've also created places on our Questionnaire where you can write whatever you'd like, unconstrained by our questions.  You can leave messages for loved ones, let them know your thoughts on anything that you think they should know, or write your own eulogy, or specify your own headstone engraving.  

Your heirs will need to know where you have bank accounts and where you have stock accounts, but please do not provide any account numbers, dollar amounts, or online log-in credentials.   It may be useful for you to state where these items can be found, but for your safety and peace of mind please don't place such information on our website.  It's entirely okay to say that you have banking accounts at Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Chase, but do not post any account numbers, dollar amounts, or log-in credentials.  Likewise with stock accounts, it is okay to say you have accounts at Schwab and eTrade, but do not post information concerning the account numbers, dollar amounts, stock and bond portfolio positions held, or log-in credentials.  You can certainly provide the name of your banker or stock broker, or insurance agent, etc., as we would expect that those persons will thoroughly “vet” anyone seeking access to your account.