iCroak: Dispensing your digital assets on death

In April I talked about Popular Mechanics’ Digital Coffin, how to pass on your digital assets and setting up 1Password as a digital Will. I was thinking in the broader sense of providing your executor with easy access to bank accounts and real assets. However, as we commit more of our cash to buying digital assets such as music, video and books, few people have made any provision to pass on these assets to friends and family.

This morning the BBC’s technology reporter Jane Wakefield gives us details of several services which are able to provide a way of letting your beneficiaries access your digital assets:

The bluntly-named iCroak is an online service aiming to help people plan how their digital assets are managed after their death.

For an annual fee of between £10 to £15 or a one-off membership of £150, the user can categorise their assets and create “Guardian” accounts for those assets they want to preserve or bequeath.

The “Guardian” will receive an email with a unique username and password and link to iCroak. When the person who has nominated them dies – and a death certificate must be verified first – they will be able to see what has been left to them.

Buying a lifetime one-off membership sounds a good idea provided iCroak doesn’t croak before you.