Once Harris finished the job, his health took a turn for the better and he recognized a business need and decided to fill it. One of the most important lessons he had learned over the past couple of years was that many people make the effort to amass financial resources to pass down to future generations, but they skip the crucial step of ensuring that those assets get into the hands of the people they were intended for. So in 2011, he launched the company Assets in Order (www.assetsinorder.com) to create a product now called Legacy Lockbox, a secure online repository that lets consumers organize and store personal information and provides detailed instructions for loved ones to access and claim assets that have been left to them.
While the doctors turned out to be wrong about Harris’s prognosis, the lessons he learned about estate planning not only helped him to ensure that his wealth will pass smoothly to the next generation, they inspired him to give others an easier way to conduct their own estate planning. “It is extremely helpful to have a road map that will show you where important papers or important information and assets are,†Harris says.
How I did it
Identify your financial gatekeepers. I wrote down the names of all the different people my family would need to talk to in case something happened. I had a corporate attorney, a personal attorney, a corporate accountant, and a personal accountant. So I had to write these things down. For example, if this happens you’ve got to call this lawyer because he’s the one that manages our trust and manages my will–that kind of thing.
Get hard copies of insurance policies. There were some policies that I had purchased years ago that I had forgotten all about, and I know my kids were not aware of them because I did this earlier on in their lives. I had misplaced hard copies of them so I had to ask my wife to call and make sure we got up-to-date policies and make sure the beneficiary information was right. So I gathered all those together, made copies, and I put them in a packet. If I had not done that there would be absolutely no way my wife or my children and loved ones would know where the information was.
Provide digital access to online accounts. I had so many codes and passwords. I had to write all of those down and passwords to bank accounts and so forth so that if something were to happen, then I could be assured that my family would be able to access those accounts and ensure that my wealth is passed to my wife, my children, and future generations.