The most organised way to die
December 2022
One day, you will die, and leave the flotsam and jetsam of your life scattered on the shores of your loved ones. It’s true this won’t matter to you, but it will be a big deal for them. This is why planning for, and properly organising for your passing goes beyond a responsibility – it’s an ultimate act of love and kindness towards your nearest and dearest that none of us should shy away from.
If we don’t plan properly for our death, we risk leaving our loved ones with a mess that they will have to deal with in the midst of their worst heartache. Almost everyone has a story about a trauma, disruption or feud that destroyed cohesiveness after a family member died. If your wishes are not crystal-clear to your survivors, and if the intricate details that they need to lay you to rest, sort out your stuff and resolve your estate are painfully hard to find and organise, your passing may well have unintended but long-lasting impacts on your loved ones.
It’s not just the fights about who gets the family jewels which are potentially devastating. There’s the older sibling who insists you told him that you wanted to be buried when everyone else believes you wanted to be cremated. There’s the aunt, beloved by you as a child, who surreptitiously collects your ashes from the crematorium and never agrees to the scattering of your ashes. There are your grown-up children who discover your secrets when they sort out your desk drawers.
“After each of my parents passed, my brother and I went through a further ordeal,” says Rachelle Best, founder and CEO of Heritage Vault. “Their financials were all in order. They did have legal Wills. They had a little suitcase they kept in a cupboard where everything they thought we would need to manage their estate could be found. But the reality was very different. There was just about nothing we needed in the suitcase. For example, we didn’t have all the important details about what they wanted for their funeral services. My brother and I had very different ideas about what they would have wanted, and that was traumatic for us to go through together.”
Not long after that Rachelle was at a service for a relative’s friend who had died unexpectedly. She remembers sitting there and thinking that nothing that was going on would have been what this person would have wanted as a remembrance of her. Rachelle says, “It just deepens your terrible sense of loss when the person who has passed is not reflected at all in the decisions that are made in their absence. I think many people experience this, and it means you don’t receive the solace and comfort that you need when your loved one has died. It’s important to leave a legal Will and your finances in order, but it’s really not sufficient, especially in these times when such a large part of our lives plays out also in digital spaces.”
A ‘first’ in South Africa, Heritage Vault is a digital solution that enables you to store all of your important estate information securely and make it easily accessible to your appointed confidants in the event that you may die or become incapacitated. Everything your executor or nominated loved ones may need will be safe in one place and perfectly organised in 13 different, easy to find categories of data.
Best says, “In designing the tool I drew on my experience as a single parent. While I had my finances in order, my up to date Will witnessed and a guardian appointed for my child, it was stressful for me to think that if something happened to me there wasn’t a person in my life who would practically know where to find everything. No one knew my passwords to my digital accounts or where I kept the keys to my storage unit. Heritage Vault solves all of those common problems.”
Your private, encrypted digital vault, which has bank-level security, organises and holds all your relevant data, from your basic personal information to your contacts and passwords, from ownership and assets documentation to all the details of your financial and consumer accounts, as well as a copy of your Last Will and Testament and your Living Will.
Best says, “You share access to your vault with a time-release mechanism that you control and configure. Your vault has special features such as distinct Clean-up Squad lockbox that enables you to instruct a nominated confidant on how to deal with any sensitive belongings, photos, videos, or documents that you want disposed of with utmost discretion. Every aspect of estate planning is covered, but there’s also a lot more.”
The process of populating your Heritage Vault, which you can do in your own time, guides you intuitively through every aspect of comprehensively planning for your passing including leaving instructions for what happens to your pets and what you want done with your social media accounts. A repository called ‘For My People’ empowers you to write private and personal messages to your loved ones that you feel will be valuable to them in the event of your passing.
Heritage Vault offers a subscription service on either a monthly, $3.50, or annual, $25 basis for one vault with 250MB of cloud space, that can be expanded if necessary. Each user can appoint unlimited confidants to manage their vault in the event of incapacitation and death. Every new user gets a 30-day trial with no obligation and no credit card details needed. Users are encouraged to regard their Heritage Vault as a living database that they update and revise as details change and as they reach different life-stages.
Will my important data be safe in my Heritage Vault?
Your Heritage Vault is secured with a username and password combination of your choice and these account details are stored separately from the data in the vault. Your data is encrypted ‘in flight’ – as you input it – using latest encryption technologies. Once the data arrives in your individually secured vault, it is encrypted at rest by 256-bit encryption, which is bank-level security that is compliant with the highest global security standards. At rest, your data is securely stored in the cloud on safe, 24/7 backed-up and reliable block storage in the European Union. Each Heritage Vault is stored individually which means that a hack on one account cannot turn into a raid on any others.
Best says, “Heritage Vault is a full, end-to-end solution, and used optimally, it’s a last gift that you can give to your loved ones. Contrary to feeling scared or depressed as you plan for your passing, Heritage Vault users report feeling empowered and relieved as they populate and update their vaults. There’s an immense peace of mind that comes with knowing that no matter what can happen from day to day, you are well-organised, and you have protected your loved ones when they will be at their most vulnerable in the best possible way.”