Digital Assets and Estate Planning: 7 Costly Things Kentucky Residents Miss

Digital assets and estate planning rarely come up together at the kitchen table, and that is exactly the problem. Most people in Kentucky still think of an estate in physical terms: the house in Lexington, the farm in Bourbon County, the truck, the savings account at the local bank. That picture leaves out a big part of how we live now. Your photos sit in iCloud. Your bills get paid through an app. Your side business runs on a Gmail account and an Etsy shop. Some of you keep Bitcoin on a hardware wallet in a desk drawer.

When someone dies or becomes incapacitated, all of that turns into a puzzle for the family. Passwords are missing. Companies refuse to talk to anyone without paperwork. Two-factor codes go to a phone nobody can unlock. Crypto can disappear for good.

The good news is that Kentucky gives you solid tools. Since July 15, 2020, the state has followed the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, codified in KRS Chapter 395A. The law lets your executor, trustee, or agent reach your online accounts, but only if your plan is set up the right way. Most plans are not.

This guide covers what counts as a digital asset, how Kentucky digital assets law works, the seven gaps that show up again and again, and a practical plan you can put in place this month. It is general information, not legal advice, so talk with a Kentucky estate planning attorney before you sign anything.

What Counts as a Digital Asset in Kentucky Estate Planning?

Under Kentucky law, a digital asset is an electronic record in which you have a right or interest. That sounds narrow, but in practice it covers almost everything you touch on a screen. A useful way to think about digital assets and estate planning is to sort your accounts by what is at stake if nobody can get in.

Financial Digital Assets

These are the accounts that hold or move money. They matter most because a missed login can mean missed bills, frozen funds, or assets nobody knows exist.

• Online-only bank accounts and high-yield savings apps
• Brokerage and retirement accounts managed through a website or app
• PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and similar payment balances
• Cryptocurrency held on an exchange or in a self-custody wallet
• Stored value like gift card balances, airline miles, and hotel points

One point people miss: the money in your Fidelity account is not itself a digital asset under the statute. The login and the electronic records are. The underlying account still passes through your will, trust, or beneficiary designation the same way it always has. The digital side is about whether your executor can find it and manage it.

Personal and Sentimental Digital Assets

This is the category families feel most. Twenty years of photos in Google Photos. A late parent’s voice in a saved voicemail. Letters that only exist as emails.

• Email accounts (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud Mail)
• Photo and video libraries in the cloud
• Social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn
• Text messages and messaging apps
• Personal documents in Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive

These usually have little dollar value, but they cause the most heartache when they are lost.

Business and Income-Producing Digital Assets

Kentucky has plenty of small business owners, farmers who sell direct online, and people with side income. These assets can be worth real money and they keep earning (or keep billing) after you are gone.

• Domain names and websites
• Online stores on Etsy, Shopify, eBay, or Amazon
• YouTube channels, podcasts, and monetized social accounts
• Self-published books, music royalties, and digital art
• Business email, accounting software, and customer lists

Devices and Access Tools

Phones, laptops, tablets, external drives, and password managers are the keys to everything above. A locked iPhone with two-factor codes on it can block access to dozens of accounts. Your plan has to address the devices, not just the accounts.

How Kentucky Law Handles Digital Assets and Estate Planning

Kentucky adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) through House Bill 156, effective July 15, 2020. It lives in Kentucky Revised Statutes Chapter 395A. In 2021 the General Assembly tweaked it with Senate Bill 72, which limits when a company can charge a fee for handing over your data. If you read older blog posts that say Kentucky has no rules on this, they are out of date.

The law answers one basic question: when you can no longer manage your accounts, who gets in, and how much can they see? Here is how it works.

The Three-Tier Priority System

The heart of Kentucky digital assets law is a ranking of instructions, set out in KRS 395A.040. When there is a conflict, the higher tier wins.

1. Online tools come first. If a company offers a built-in tool (like Google’s Inactive Account Manager or Facebook’s legacy contact) and you use it, that choice beats anything your will, trust, or power of attorney says, as long as the tool lets you change or delete your choice at any time.
2. Your estate planning documents come second. If you never used an online tool, or the company does not offer one, your will, trust, power of attorney, or other written record controls.
3. Terms of service come last. If you left no instructions anywhere, the company’s terms of service fill the gap. Those terms are written to protect the company, not your family.

This ranking surprises a lot of people. You can pay a lawyer to draft careful language in your will, then undo it without realizing by clicking through a setup screen on your phone years earlier.

Content Versus Catalog: The Distinction That Matters Most

RUFADAA treats two kinds of information very differently.

• The catalog of your communications is the who, when, and to whom: sender and recipient addresses, dates, and times.
• The content is the actual message: the body of the email, the text, the attached photo.

By default, a personal representative can get the catalog and your other digital assets with the right paperwork. The content of your emails and messages is protected by federal privacy law, so the company will only disclose it if you clearly consented, either through an online tool or in your will, trust, or power of attorney. No consent, no content. That one rule is behind most of the frustration families run into.

What Your Executor Has to Send the Company

A Kentucky executor (called a personal representative) cannot simply call Apple and ask nicely. The statute requires a written request plus supporting documents, which usually include:

• A copy of the death certificate
• A certified copy of the court order appointing the personal representative, or an order dispensing with administration under KRS 395.455
• A copy of the will or other record showing your consent, if the request is for content
• Information identifying the account, if the company asks for it

In some cases the company can also ask for a court finding that the account belonged to the person who died, which adds time and cost.

How Fast Companies Have to Respond

Under KRS 395A.160, a custodian has 60 days after receiving the required information to comply. It can choose to give full access, partial access, or just a copy of the records. It does not have to recover anything you deleted. After the 2021 amendment, a company may charge a reasonable administrative fee, but not when you would have had access to the same assets for free.

Fiduciaries Are Treated as Authorized Users

One helpful piece of fiduciary access to digital assets in Kentucky: a fiduciary acting under the law counts as an authorized user for purposes of the state’s computer crime statutes (KRS 434.840 to 434.860). That gives your executor or agent legal cover to log into your devices and accounts within the scope of their duties. It also means a family member logging in without that authority is on shakier ground.

7 Digital Assets and Estate Planning Gaps Kentucky Residents Miss

These are the problems that come up most often when families try to settle an estate with an online footprint. None of them are hard to fix in advance. All of them are hard to fix afterward.

1. Assuming a Standard Will Covers Everything

A basic Kentucky will that leaves “all my property” to your spouse does not, by itself, give your executor permission to read your email. Remember the content rule from KRS 395A: without your clear consent, the company will hand over the catalog at most. If your spouse needs to dig through old emails to find a life insurance policy or a crypto exchange login, they may hit a wall.

The fix: Ask your attorney to add express consent language for digital assets, including the content of electronic communications, to your will, trust, and power of attorney.

2. Ignoring (or Forgetting About) Online Tools

Because online tools sit at the top of the priority list, they can help you or hurt you. Common ones include:

• Google Inactive Account Manager, which can share selected data with up to 10 people after a period of inactivity you choose
• Apple Legacy Contact, which gives a named person an access key to your iCloud data after death
• Facebook legacy contact and the option to memorialize or delete your profile
• Microsoft, LinkedIn, and others have their own processes, though not all count as online tools under the statute

The trouble comes when your online tool says one thing and your will says another. If you set Google to delete everything after six months of inactivity in 2017, that setting can override the consent in the will you signed in 2024. Review these settings when you update your Kentucky will.

3. Leaving a Password List Instead of Legal Authority

Plenty of people tape a list of passwords inside a filing cabinet and call it done. That helps, but it is not a plan. Here is why:

• Passwords change, and two-factor authentication often sends codes to a phone that may be locked.
• Most terms of service forbid anyone else from logging in as you.
• Logging in as someone who has died can create problems for banks and brokerages, which may freeze accounts once they learn of the death.
• Writing passwords into your will is a bad idea. Once a will goes through Kentucky probate, it can become a public court record.

The fix: Use a password manager with an emergency access feature, or store an encrypted list where your executor can reach it, and pair it with the legal authority in your documents. The passwords give practical access. The documents give legal permission.

4. Planning for Death but Not for Incapacity

A stroke, an accident, or dementia can leave you alive but unable to manage your accounts. Your will does nothing until you die. In that window, your durable power of attorney is the document that matters.

Under KRS 395A, an agent under a power of attorney can access the catalog and other digital assets if the document grants that authority, but needs express permission to see the content of your communications. Many older Kentucky POA forms say nothing about digital assets at all. If yours was signed before 2020, it is worth a look.

5. Treating Cryptocurrency Like a Bank Account

Cryptocurrency estate planning is its own animal. If your Bitcoin sits on an exchange like Coinbase, your executor can work with the exchange using the normal paperwork. But if you hold coins in a self-custody wallet, the private key or seed phrase is the asset. No court order can make the blockchain give it back.

Things Kentucky crypto holders commonly miss:

• Nobody in the family knows the wallet exists
• The seed phrase is stored only in the owner’s head or on a single device
• The seed phrase is stored somewhere easy to steal, which creates the opposite risk
• The will names an executor who has no idea how to move crypto safely

Good options include a sealed letter of instruction kept with your attorney, a bank safe deposit box, a multi-signature wallet setup, or a specialized custody service. The right answer depends on how much you hold and how tech-comfortable your family is.

6. Overlooking Digital Business Assets

If you run an Etsy store out of Bowling Green, a farm-to-table website in Woodford County, or a YouTube channel that pays you every month, those are real assets with real value. They also come with ongoing obligations: customer orders, hosting bills, domain renewals, and sales tax filings.

Common gaps:

• The business email is in your personal name, so nobody else can reset passwords
• Domain names lapse and get snapped up by squatters
• Royalty and ad income keeps landing in an account no one is watching
• Business partners have no written right to step in

If the business is an LLC, your operating agreement and succession plan should address digital accounts too, not just your membership interest.

7. Forgetting the Small Stuff That Adds Up

Subscriptions, autopays, and rewards programs feel minor until an executor spends months chasing them. Streaming services keep charging a card. Cloud storage plans lapse and data gets deleted. Airline miles and hotel points may be transferable after death, or they may simply vanish, depending on the program’s rules.

There is also a security angle. Online accounts after death are a target for identity thieves, who scan obituaries for names and birth dates. Closing unneeded accounts promptly, and notifying the credit bureaus, protects the estate.

How to Build a Digital Estate Plan in Kentucky: Step by Step

A solid approach to digital assets and estate planning does not require you to be a tech expert. It requires an afternoon of honest list-making and one conversation with your attorney. The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension publishes a helpful free guide, Planning Your Digital Estate (FCS 5-465), that pairs well with the steps below.

1. Take a digital asset inventory. List every account and device you can think of. Go through your phone’s app list, your password manager, your email inbox (search for “welcome” and “receipt”), and your bank statements for recurring charges. Group them into financial, personal, business, and devices.
2. Decide what should happen to each one. For every item, choose: transfer to someone, keep and preserve, memorialize, or close and delete. Some photo libraries you want kept forever. Some old accounts you would rather nobody ever read.
3. Set up the online tools. Turn on Google Inactive Account Manager, Apple Legacy Contact, and Facebook legacy contact where they make sense. Make sure the choices you make here match what you want in your will, because these settings outrank your will under KRS 395A.040.
4. Update your will and trust. Ask your attorney to include language that grants your personal representative and trustee authority over your digital assets, including express consent to disclose the content of electronic communications if that is what you want. If you would rather certain accounts stay private, say that too.
5. Update your durable power of attorney. This is the one people skip. Give your agent clear authority over digital assets during incapacity, again with or without access to content.
6. Consider naming a digital executor. If your main executor is not comfortable with technology, you can name someone to handle the digital side, working under or alongside the personal representative. Your attorney can draft this so the roles do not conflict.
7. Store access information securely. Use a password manager with emergency access, an encrypted file, or a sealed letter of instruction. Keep crypto seed phrases separate and protected. Tell your executor where to look, not necessarily what is inside.
8. Review every two or three years. Accounts come and go. So do people. Put a reminder on your calendar to revisit your inventory, online tool settings, and documents, and always after a major life event like marriage, divorce, a new business, or a move.

What Consent Language Might Look Like

Every plan should be drafted by a Kentucky attorney, but it helps to know what you are asking for. A digital assets provision often does three things:

• Names the fiduciary who has authority over digital assets
• States clearly whether the fiduciary may access the content of electronic communications, not just the catalog
• Confirms the fiduciary is an authorized user of your devices and accounts under KRS Chapter 395A and Kentucky computer access laws

A simplified example of the consent idea: “I consent to the disclosure to my personal representative of the content of my electronic communications and all other digital assets, as permitted under KRS Chapter 395A.” Real drafting will be more precise and tailored to your situation.

Who Should Be Your Digital Executor?

Kentucky law does not create a separate official title called digital executor. In practice, though, many people pick someone specific to handle the online side. Look for a person who is:

• Comfortable with technology and two-factor authentication
• Trustworthy with private information, since they may read your messages
• Organized and willing to deal with customer service departments
• Likely to outlive you and stay reachable

It is fine for this to be the same person as your executor. What matters is that the authority is written down, not assumed.

FAQ: Digital Assets and Estate Planning in Kentucky

Does Kentucky law apply if the company is based in California?

Generally, yes. Kentucky’s version of the uniform act is written to apply to a custodian when the account holder lives in Kentucky or lived here at death, no matter where the company is headquartered. Most states have adopted a version of the same act, so large tech companies are used to handling these requests.

Can my executor read my text messages and emails?

Only if you said so. Without express consent in an online tool, will, trust, or power of attorney, your executor can usually get the catalog (who you messaged and when) but not the content. If there are things you want kept private, you can say that in writing too.

What happens to my digital assets if I die without a will in Kentucky?

A court appoints an administrator under Kentucky’s intestacy rules. That person can request your catalog and other digital assets with the proper court documents, but with no written consent from you, the content of your messages will usually stay locked. The process is slower and more expensive than if you had planned ahead.

Should I put my passwords in my will?

No. A will can become a public record once it is filed in probate court, and passwords change often anyway. Keep passwords in a secure password manager or encrypted file and tell your executor how to find it.

Is a digital estate plan expensive?

For most people, adding digital asset provisions is a small part of an overall estate plan, not a separate project. The inventory and online tool settings cost nothing but your time. The bigger expense is what your family faces if you skip it: court petitions, months of waiting, and assets that may never be recovered.

How often should I update my digital estate plan?

Every two to three years at a minimum, and after big changes like a new business, a crypto purchase, a marriage, or a divorce. Your inventory goes stale faster than your will does.