What it covers
Every situation we could think of, and the one step that settles it.
A locked phone. Gold nobody else knows about. A car in a friend's barn. Photos you would rather nobody saw. A will you wrote yourself and never had witnessed. Each of these has a plain answer, and SuddenGone walks you to it.
This is the same list the guide inside your account works from. There, each step opens in place: you fill it in, it is sealed on your device, and the step ticks itself off.
Tick what is true of you
The list below narrows to what applies to your life. Nothing you tick here is saved or sent anywhere.
Your people
Who receives your envelope, and how they open it even if nothing was handed over in time.
Name the person who receives your envelopeStart here
Until you name someone there is nobody to hand anything to. Most people start with whoever would end up doing the work.
Get their card to them todayStart here
If you died tonight, your family would have none of your things: not your phone, not your email, not your recovery code. Their card must already be in their hands. Send it by text or email the moment you make it.
Add a backup key from something only they knowStart here
Cards get lost and some never get handed over. A question only that person can answer opens the same envelope without the card.
Name a second person
If you and your first person are in the same accident, or they cannot face it, someone else needs to be able to act.
Run a practice
They type their card code and we confirm it works. Nothing is opened. It is the only way to know the hand-off will work on the day.
Decide who may report your passing
Only someone you allow can start a release, and only with a death certificate. Pick people who would know quickly.
List the people who should simply be told
An employer, a landlord, clients, old friends, an online community. We email each of them your short note when your envelope is released.
Print the one-page sheet for the fridge
It says a SuddenGone exists, who holds a card and how to start. It holds no secrets, so it can sit in plain sight.
Getting in
A locked phone and a locked inbox stop everything else. Start here.
Write down your phone passcodeStart here
Sign-in codes, photos, contacts and banking apps all sit behind it. A locked phone is the most common dead end.
Add the sign-in for your main emailStart here
Almost every other account resets through it. With your email open, your family can sort out the rest.
Bring in every login at once
Your browser or password manager already has them. Import the file and each one is sealed on this device.
Add your password manager's master password
If you use one, it is the key to everything in it, and it cannot be reset.
Add your computer's password
Tax files, photos and saved passwords are usually there and nowhere else.
Add your phone carrier account and its PIN
If the phone plan lapses, the number is lost and so is every sign-in code sent to it. Your family needs to keep it alive for a few months.
Save the backup codes for your main accounts
When a service asks for a code from your phone or authenticator, backup codes are the way in if the phone is broken.
Turn on Google's and Apple's own legacy settings
They are free, the companies honour them, and they work even if a password changes later.
Applies when: A lot of my life is online
List external drives and home servers
Family photos and old files often live on a drive in a drawer, encrypted with a password nobody else knows.
Add the alarm, gate and Wi-Fi codes
The first person through the door should not set off the alarm.
Applies when: I own a home or land, or I rent my home
You, on paper
The numbers every form will ask your family for.
Add your Social Security numberStart here
The funeral home, the bank and every benefits form will ask for it.
Add your passport and driver's licence
The numbers close accounts, and the documents themselves should be found and cancelled so nobody else can use them.
Say where your birth and marriage certificates are
Survivor benefits and insurance claims often ask for both.
Add your Medicare or health plan number
Needed to stop coverage, settle final bills and avoid fraud on the number.
Add your IDs from another country
A bank or land office abroad will not act without its own country's numbers.
Applies when: I have accounts, property or family in another country
Say where your citizenship or immigration papers are
Your family's own status or benefits can depend on yours.
Applies when: I have accounts, property or family in another country
Say where your discharge papers are
Burial benefits, a flag, a headstone and survivor payments all start with that one form.
Applies when: I served in the military
Money
Every account, every policy, and who each one pays.
List every bank and investment accountStart here
Families routinely miss accounts they never knew about. One entry each, with how to get in and who it pays.
Name a beneficiary on every account that allows itStart here
A named beneficiary is paid directly, in days, with no court. It is free and it overrides a will. Ask each bank for its payable-on-death or transfer-on-death form.
List every life insurance policy
Policies go unclaimed because nobody knew they existed. Include the one through work.
List pensions and retirement accounts
A spouse may be owed a survivor pension, and old 401(k)s from past jobs are easy to lose.
Note what your job owes your family
Final pay, unused leave, group life insurance, stock that has vested. Add who to call in HR.
Applies when: I have a job with benefits
List stock options or shares at work
They can expire within months of a death unless someone acts.
Applies when: I have a job with benefits
List what you owe
So your family knows what is real when the letters arrive, and does not pay a debt that died with you.
Applies when: I have a mortgage, loans or card balances
Write down money people owe you
A loan to a friend or a deposit you are due exists only in your head unless you write it down.
List the bills that must keep being paid, and the ones to cancel
Autopay stops when an account freezes. The mortgage and the power still need paying; the gym does not.
Say where your tax returns are and how you file
A final return is due after a death, and last year's return lists accounts nobody remembered.
List accounts and property in another country
Nothing links them to you here. Without a note, they are never found.
Applies when: I have accounts, property or family in another country
List health and college savings accounts
Both have their own beneficiary forms and their own rules.
Applies when: I have children under 18, or I have a serious health condition
Home, vehicles and work
What you own, what you owe, and what keeps running.
Add your home: deed, mortgage, where the keys are
The deed and the loan decide what happens to the house. The rest is knowing how it runs.
Applies when: I own a home or land
Add your landlord and lease
Someone must give notice, get the deposit back and return the keys.
Applies when: I rent my home
List every vehicle, including the ones not in the drivewayStart here
The project car in a friend's barn, the boat at the marina, the trailer in storage. Say where each one is and where its title is.
Applies when: I own a car, boat or other vehicle
Put a transfer-on-death name on each title
Many places let you name who gets a vehicle right on the registration, with no court. Ask your motor vehicle office.
Applies when: I own a car, boat or other vehicle
List home and vehicle insurance
Cover on an empty house can lapse within weeks. Someone needs to call.
Applies when: I own a home or land, or I rent my home, or I own a car, boat or other vehicle
Say who can run your business tomorrowStart here
Payroll, open jobs and customers do not wait for a court. Name the person and leave them the sign-ins.
Applies when: I own a business or earn on the side
List websites, channels and anything that earns online
Domains expire and payouts stop. Each one needs a name and a sign-in.
Applies when: I own a business or earn on the side, or A lot of my life is online
Those who depend on you
Children, a parent, a pet. Who steps in on the first night.
Name a guardian for your childrenStart here
If both parents are gone and nobody is named, a court chooses. A signed will is where a guardian is named.
Applies when: I have children under 18
Write down each child's day
School, doctor, allergies, bedtime, the friend's parent who helps. The first week runs on this.
Applies when: I have children under 18
Write down what the adult in your care needs
Medication, routines, benefits and who is willing to take over.
Applies when: An adult depends on me
Say who takes your pets, tonight and for good
Pets are the first emergency. Name someone who has agreed, and the vet.
Applies when: I have pets
List your doctors, medicines and allergies
Useful the day you cannot speak for yourself, long before anything else in this envelope.
Papers that give someone the right to act
A password lets someone in. Only a signed paper lets them act. You can make each one yourself here.
Make a will, sign it, have it witnessedStart here
A will says who gets what and who is in charge. You can write your own. It only counts once it is signed and witnessed the way your state or country requires.
Say where the signed original isStart here
Courts usually need the original paper. If it cannot be found, they may treat it as cancelled.
Sign a power of attorney, for while you are aliveStart here
If you are in hospital or cannot decide for yourself, this is the paper that lets someone pay your bills and deal with your bank. It stops at death, when the will takes over, so you need both.
Sign a health care directiveStart here
It names who speaks to doctors for you and what treatment you would want. Hospitals ask for it early.
Consider a living trust
What you put in a trust passes to the people you name without a court, in private. It only works for things you actually move into it.
Applies when: I own a home or land, or I own a business or earn on the side, or I have accounts, property or family in another country
Sign a digital assets authorisation
It tells email, photo and social companies in writing that your executor may have your content. Many will not release anything without it.
Applies when: A lot of my life is online
Write a letter of instruction
Not a legal paper: a plain letter to your executor saying what to do first, in your own words.
Add the person you named as executor
They should know they were chosen, and your family should know who to call.
Choose who steps in if you are alive but cannot actStart here
A stroke, a coma, a long stay in hospital. Pick one person and what they may see then: bills, health, the phone. Nothing else is released.
Private things
What should be deleted, and by whom, before the family sees anything.
Choose someone to go firstStart here
One person you trust, often a friend rather than family, receives their envelope before everyone else. They tidy up, then the others receive theirs.
Applies when: There are things I want deleted before anyone looks
Write the clean-up listStart here
What to delete, where it is, and the passcode to get there. Only the person who goes first ever sees it.
Applies when: There are things I want deleted before anyone looks
Turn on the phone's and cloud's own auto-delete
SuddenGone cannot reach into a phone. The phone can: disappearing messages, auto-delete of history, an inactive-account setting that erases the account. Set them once.
Applies when: There are things I want deleted before anyone looks, or A lot of my life is online
Mark entries that should never be handed over
Some things you keep here only for yourself. Mark them and they are destroyed at release, unread.
Leave something for one person's eyes only
A truth, an apology, a family secret. Set who may read it and nobody else's envelope contains it.
Words and wishes
What you would want, and what you would say.
Say what you want done
Burial or cremation, a service or none, the music. So nobody has to guess, or argue, on the worst day.
Note any pre-paid funeral or burial plot
Families pay twice because nobody knew it was already bought.
Say whether you are an organ donor
Doctors ask the family within hours. A written answer spares them the decision.
Draft your obituary, or the facts for it
Dates, places and names are hard to get right in grief.
Write or record something for each person
It is the part families keep.
Leave a letter for a day you will miss
A birthday, a graduation, a wedding, the first anniversary. It stays sealed until that morning, then opens in their envelope.
Say what should happen to your social accounts
Left alone they send birthday reminders for years. Close, memorialise or hand over: say which.
Applies when: A lot of my life is online
Safety net
So it works on the day, whatever happens to you or to them.
Carry an emergency card
After an accident or a stroke, nobody at the hospital knows who to call or what you take. A wallet card and a lock screen tell them in seconds.
Applies when: I live alone, or I have a serious health condition
Turn on check-insStart here
If you live alone, days can pass before anyone knows. One tap a day or a week, and your people hear if you stop answering.
Applies when: I live alone, or I have a serious health condition
Turn on two-step sign-inStart here
This account now holds your passwords. A second step means a stolen password alone opens nothing.
Leave a note for the day you go quiet
Where you live, who has a key, your doctor. Sent to your people only if you stop answering.
Applies when: I live alone
Print a binder for the safe
If the internet, this company or your family's memory fails, paper still works.
Look it over once a year
New account, new phone, new partner, a divorce. We will remind you.
Missing something?
If your situation is not here, the envelope still has room for it.
Every section takes free notes and a sealed attachment, and a letter can say anything to one person only. Tell us what we missed and we will add it to the guide.