A new digital estate planning service has been launched which can organise, manage, store and selectively share all our most important personal and financial information.
Zenplans manages assets, debts and other financial affairs as well as key information about our daily lives; from our utility provider to our social media accounts.
The system also securely stores wishes - including details about our will, Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) and digital legacy - with the option to selectively share key details with named delegates.
These delegates can be granted restricted or full access, either immediately or after a particular time - for example, after death, or we become incapacitated - ensuring the information is quickly and easily accessible by the right people as and when needed.
This means that if someone dies and they had a Zenplan in place, the solicitor, accountant, executor of the Will and any financial advisors who have been granted access will have all the information they need to complete probate, meaning they don’t need to keep bothering the grieving family, which not only saves time and unnecessary stress, but also mitigates the risk of missing any key information.
Zenplans was created by Stephen Moses, a former management consultant for EY, after he experienced first-hand how difficult it can be to identify and collate all the information needed to administer someone’s estate.
He realised that, not only is there a huge amount of personal and financial information to deal with, but that finding it all and making sure the right people have access to it can be a complete minefield.
He said: “Our lives are increasingly becoming more digital, and with so many different accounts and passwords to remember it can feel quite chaotic at times. Gone are the days when we had a folder full of our most important paperwork - insurance documents, pensions, utilities etc - now everything is online. And while in theory, digital assets are more secure, if you pass away and haven’t left clear instructions about what you have and where, those left behind have an almost impossible task trying to piece it all together with no real way of knowing if they have tracked everything down or not.
“I wanted to do something to make it much easier for people to keep on top of all their important information during their lifetime, but also create a way for people to share all that key information securely with those closest to them to make estate administration easy.”
Zenplans has been designed for professionals involved in estate planning to use on behalf of their clients. As well as helping accountants, advisers and solicitors manage their clients’ key information, it also works as a key planning tool.
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