Estate Planning: Dealing with your digital death instead of before

Portland company WebCease is making waves in the probate and estate-planning community by helping attorneys and grieving families locate the deceased’s digital accounts.

CEO Glenn Williamson aims to be the first to provide this service to the growing market of families and attorneys trying to track down digital accounts. Williamson is banking on the need for this service to continue to grow as people continue to use digital accounts for shopping, social media and traveling.

WebCease searches across different vendors to determine if the deceased person had an account. WebCease then generates a report that outlines the location of the deceased’s accounts and includes instructions on how to transfer the account or shut it down. The company will not take any action to use the account, or attempt to login to the account.

For example, if a person has accrued points with Delta Airlines or Marriott Hotels, Webcease will find the account and alert the interested party as to what further steps and documents are needed to use the points. Williamson hopes the company’s services will help to save time for grieving families and reduce the possibility of identify theft.

Williamson first came up with the idea while visiting his LinkedIn page. The networking site suggested he connect with two people he knew had passed away. The idea further took root when Williamson’s mother died, and he himself had to search for her digital accounts. He documented these steps and realized the immense amount of time and work it took to track down these accounts.

It took him more than 20 hours or searching and researching the various companies’ terms of service. He eventually found his mom had 13 online accounts. This search allowed him to find more than 50,000 miles through United Airlines, which could be transferred or donated to another account.

Currently, about 60 percent of the process is automated. The rest of the work required the company to hire a team of researchers to compile the report. Williamson plans to hire six employees throughout the year. So far the company has targeted its service to probate attorneys and other estate-planning professionals. A full report costs $529, but the company is releasing a $99 pared-down version for consumers.

WebCease focuses on companies and websites with monetary value, such as travel sites, shopping websites, and social media sites that could hold sensitive information about the deceased person. Currently WebCease searches through about 70 websites and plans to add more as the company grows.

WebCease is a inventive solution for those who have not included their digital accounts in their estate-planning materials. According to Williamson, only 50 percent of Americans have a will and 90 percent don’t include digital assets in the will. For more information on Webcease or including digital information in your estate-planning materials contact the Law Office of David Goldman today at 904-685-1200.