Texas law puts platform settings above your will. A legacy contact you set casually in 2019 outranks a document your attorney drafted last month.
Most estate planning assumes the things you own are physical, or at least held somewhere with a phone number you can call. Increasingly they are not. And Texas law resolves the conflict in a way almost nobody expects: a setting inside an app can override the will your attorney drafted.
Texas adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act in 2017, codified at Texas Estates Code Chapter 2001. Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted a version of it; Louisiana has not.
It sets a three-tier order of priority, and the order is the whole story:
General description of the RUFADAA priority framework as adopted in Texas. Statutes and platform policies change; confirm with a Texas estate attorney.
Here is a detail that surprises attorneys, let alone families. Even where a will authorises access to digital assets, without specific language covering the content of electronic communications a fiduciary may only obtain catalogue information: sender, date, subject line. Not the messages themselves.
The distinction matters enormously. A list of who emailed you is not the same as being able to read the email confirming where a policy is held.
Commonly documented platform behaviour as of the review date. Policies change frequently; verify current settings directly with each provider.
Every other category has a path, however slow. Cryptocurrency does not.
There is no bank to call, no password reset, no customer service line, no recovery process. If nobody has the private key, the funds are permanently gone. A court order accomplishes nothing, because there is no custodian to serve it on. Hardware wallets hold keys on a physical device that someone has to find and be able to open.
If you hold crypto, the seed phrase location and access instructions need to exist somewhere your executor can reach. That is a security problem and an estate problem at once, and it is worth solving deliberately rather than hoping.
This is the part I actually have standing to talk about, and it is the reason I wrote the page.
Paperless statements have made policies harder to find. A generation ago a policy meant an envelope in a filing cabinet. Now it means an email address the family cannot access, a portal login nobody has, and an autopay draft on a card that gets cancelled when the account closes.
Only if you have set it up correctly. Texas adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act in 2017 under Texas Estates Code Chapter 2001. It gives executors, trustees and agents legal authority over digital assets, but that authority depends on a three-tier priority order: a platform's own online tool comes first, your will or trust comes second, and the platform's terms of service come last. Without express permission through one of the first two, providers can and do deny access even to a spouse.
Yes, and it surprises people. Under RUFADAA's priority structure a platform's own online tool sits above estate documents. A legacy contact you designated casually years ago outranks instructions your attorney drafted last month. The theory is that the most recent direct expression of your intent should win. The practical consequence is that platform settings deserve the same periodic review as your estate documents.
Less than most people assume. They can pin a post to the memorialised profile, update the profile and cover photos, and request that the account be removed. They cannot read private messages, and they cannot remove past posts or friends. It is a memorialisation tool rather than full access, which is worth knowing before assuming it solves the problem.
If you have designated a Legacy Contact, that person can request access to photos, messages, notes and files using a key Apple generates plus a death certificate. Without a Legacy Contact, Apple generally requires a court order, which is slow and expensive. Setting one takes a few minutes in your iPhone settings and is among the highest-value items on this list.
It is permanently lost. There is no bank to call, no password reset, no customer service, and no recovery process. A court order accomplishes nothing because there is no custodian to serve it on. If nobody has the private key or seed phrase, the funds are gone. Anyone holding crypto needs access instructions to exist somewhere their executor can reach.
No. A will becomes a public record when it goes through probate, so anything written in it stops being private. Use a password manager with an emergency access feature and name a trusted person there. Keep an inventory of where accounts exist alongside your will, but store the actual credentials separately.
More than people expect. Paperless statements mean policies now live in an email account the family cannot open rather than a filing cabinet they can. A policy nobody knows about does not get claimed. Autopay from an account that closes at death can put a policy into its grace period at the worst possible time. Adding your carrier, policy number and where statements are delivered to your account inventory is a single line that can save a family weeks.
Run the free searches before assuming it does not exist. The NAIC Life Policy Locator submits a request to participating insurers, and state unclaimed property databases hold proceeds from policies that were never claimed. Both are free. Check the deceased's email and bank statements for premium drafts as well, since a recurring payment to an insurer is often the first solid clue.
Dev Gaymes is a licensed insurance broker, not an attorney. General education about Texas law, not legal advice and not advice about your situation. Statutes, platform policies and terms of service change frequently; descriptions here reflect published sources as of the review date and may not be current. Whether any provision applies to your circumstances, and how your documents should be drafted, are questions for a licensed Texas estate attorney. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. Not an offer of insurance or a quote.