Have you ever considered how your loved ones would cope with sorting out your affairs if you weren’t there to guide them?
My dear mum always told us that when she was ‘finally carted out of her house in her box’, everything we needed to know was in a blue folder in her knitting basket. Sadly, when that time came, the knitting basket was there by her side – but the file was nowhere to be seen.
What followed was a long, exhausting process of detective work to locate a lifetime of financial affairs, household accounts, insurances, and pensions.
Determined not to put my own nearest and dearest through that same hassle, I became a self-confessed “catastrophist.” I kept a vital information spreadsheet that I would regularly update and print off before every flight, leaving it in a “fairly obvious but not too visible” place in case of burglars. It was better than nothing, but it wasn’t exactly a sophisticated system.
Discovering the digital vault
My ears pricked up recently while I was working with the Silver Marketing Association to welcome a new member: SmartOnion.
SmartOnion is a secure online vault where, for a small fee, you can store all your vital information and, crucially, grant access to trusted individuals. For someone like me, who values being “sorted,” it sounded like the answer to a prayer.
Setting up: easier than the filing cabinet
Registering for a SmartOnion account was seamless (and made even better by the Silver Marketing Association member discount!). Within minutes, I was setting up my profile with the essentials: NI number, driving licence and passport details.
What I love most is the pre-made vaults. They act as a digital checklist for a well-organised life:
- Finance: mortgages, banks, credit cards, and pensions.
- Insurance: life, house, car, travel
- Utilities: All your service providers in one easy-to-view place.
- Lifestyle: Gym memberships, streaming services, and magazine subscriptions.
A note on security: You don’t add sensitive login details like PINs or passwords. Instead, you store the existence and location of the accounts. It’s about creating a map for your executors, not a master key for hackers.
The “Hidden Gold” moment
The process of uploading my data actually saved me from a few headaches. While I was inputting my insurance details, I realised my life insurance policy was missing from its physical file. I eventually tracked it down in a carrier bag in the loft (the result of a panicked “mass tidy-up” of scooping up loose papers prior to last-minute visitors). Out of sight and instantly out of mind!
SmartOnion forced me to find it, digitise it, and secure it. I’ve since added Custom Vaults for so much more (and will no doubt think of more as time goes by):
- The big purchases: guarantees for recent eye-wateringly expensive purchases such as my De’Longhi coffee maker and Serious Readers lamp.
- Home and travel: planning permissions and building certificates for the extensions, car breakdown info, and my ESTA.
- The essentials: My Will and last wishes and, should it be necessary, any Power of Attorney.
The ultimate gift to my family
The whole point of this exercise is to make life easier for my loved ones. So I now needed to grant access to my account to one of more people who might need all this information in the future. I sent a direct invite from my SmartOnion account to my eldest son who is a scientist and a pragmatist. I also sent a quick message to explain the invite so he wouldn’t worry. His reply? “Yup, all makes sense!”
As I look towards “Twixmas” (that wonderful lull between Christmas and New Year), I’ve decided it’s the perfect time to finish my digital admin. I might even attempt some “Swedish Death Cleansing” while I’m at it – perhaps photographing those sentimental love letters, Mother’s Day cards and cherished Biba outfits from the 70s to store in my SmartOnion vault. too?
Final thoughts
What price can you put on peace of mind? Knowing that my “blue folder” will never go missing – because it’s encrypted, secure, and accessible to the people who matter – is the best gift I can give myself (and my son).
Carole Tidball
