Digital assets in a Florida estate plan are the online accounts, files, and electronic property you own or control — email, cloud storage, brokerage and banking logins, cryptocurrency, domain names, loyalty points, and digital business records — together with the legal authority you grant a fiduciary to access them after death or incapacity. In Florida, that authority is governed primarily by the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, codified at Chapter 740 of the Florida Statutes. Without explicit instructions, your personal representative or agent may be locked out of the very accounts that hold your most valuable — and most sensitive — property.
I have sat across the table from too many families who discovered, weeks into a probate, that a deceased physician’s entire patient-billing archive lived in a cloud account no one could open, or that a seven-figure crypto wallet was effectively gone because the only person who knew the seed phrase had died with it. For professionals and physicians in South Florida, the stakes are unusually high. Your digital life is not just photos and Facebook. It is income, intellectual property, regulatory exposure, and in some cases the difference between a clean estate and a litigated one.
What counts as a digital asset under Florida law
Florida law defines a digital asset broadly. Under Chapter 740, a “digital asset” is an electronic record in which an individual has a right or interest. That definition is deliberately wide, and it helps to think in categories rather than trying to list every account.
- Financial accounts. Online banking, brokerage and retirement portals, PayPal, Venmo, and payment processors used in a practice or business.
- Cryptocurrency and tokenized assets. Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, NFTs, and the wallets, exchanges, and private keys that control them.
- Communications. Email accounts and the content of electronic communications — which Florida treats differently and more protectively than other assets.
- Business and professional records. Practice-management software, EHR portals, client files, billing systems, and SaaS subscriptions tied to your livelihood.
- Intellectual property and revenue streams. Domain names, websites, monetized channels, published courses, and licensing dashboards.
- Stored value and personal files. Cloud photo libraries, loyalty and airline-miles programs, gaming assets, and password managers.
One distinction matters more than any other. The law separates the content of electronic communications — the actual words inside your emails and messages — from the catalogue of those communications, meaning the metadata about who you contacted and when. Florida gives the catalogue to fiduciaries far more readily than the content, and that single nuance trips up most do-it-yourself plans.
Why a will alone does not unlock your accounts
Here is the trap. People assume that because their will names a personal representative with broad powers, that representative can simply log in and take over. They cannot, and the reason is layered.
First, terms-of-service agreements — the contracts you click through without reading — frequently prohibit account transfer and may purport to terminate access on death. Second, federal privacy law, principally the Stored Communications Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, can make it a crime for a provider to disclose the content of communications, and can expose a well-meaning fiduciary who “just uses the password” to liability. A password is not legal authority. It is a credential that may itself be unlawful to use.
Chapter 740 was Florida’s answer. It builds a tiered system of priority that determines who controls disclosure:
- An online tool. If a provider offers a built-in directive — Google’s Inactive Account Manager or Facebook’s Legacy Contact, for example — and you use it, that choice generally overrides everything else, including your will.
- Your estate planning documents. If you have not used an online tool, your will, trust, power of attorney, or other record controls — but only if it grants the authority in clear, specific language.
- The terms of service. If you have done neither, the provider’s contract governs by default, and that default is rarely friendly to your family.
The lesson is plain. Silence hands the decision to a Silicon Valley user agreement. Affirmative drafting takes it back.
Granting fiduciaries access the right way
Effective planning means giving each of your fiduciaries — the personal representative under your will, the trustee of your trust, and the agent under your durable power of attorney — express, statute-tracking authority over digital assets, including the content of electronic communications where you want that. Generic boilerplate is not enough; the disclosure of content in particular should be addressed deliberately.
For a physician or business owner, the durable power of attorney is often the most urgent of the three, because incapacity, not death, is the more common emergency. If you are hospitalized for a month, someone has to keep the practice’s billing running, renew the malpractice portal, and pay the vendors — all of which now live behind logins. A power of attorney that predates the digital era, or that omits Chapter 740 language, can leave your agent powerless precisely when speed matters. This is one reason estate planning and elder-law strategy increasingly overlap; an experienced team like the attorneys behind approach digital access and incapacity as a single, connected problem rather than two separate forms.
Coordinate the documents so they do not contradict one another. If your trust holds your brokerage assets but your will names a different person as personal representative, decide deliberately who controls which accounts, and make sure the language in each instrument lines up. Conflicting grants are an invitation to litigation.
Special problems: cryptocurrency, practices, and privacy
Cryptocurrency and private keys
Crypto is unforgiving because it is bearer property in digital form. There is no customer-service line at a self-custody wallet. If your heirs cannot reach the private keys or seed phrase, the asset is irretrievable — not frozen, not delayed, but gone. At the same time, you cannot simply paste a seed phrase into your will, because a probated will becomes a public record. The workable approach separates authority from access: your documents grant the legal right to control the asset, while the keys themselves are secured through a sealed instruction, a hardware solution, or a trust mechanism that never enters the public file.
Medical and professional practices
Physicians carry obligations that survive them. Patient records governed by HIPAA do not stop being confidential because a doctor has died, and a practice’s electronic health records may need orderly transfer, retention, or notice to patients under Florida and federal rules. A digital asset plan for a clinician should name who may access practice systems, how patient data is handled, and how the wind-down or sale of the practice’s digital infrastructure proceeds. This is rarely a job for the same person who inherits the beach condo.
Privacy and what you do not want disclosed
Access cuts both ways. Just as you can grant authority, you can withhold it. You may want your personal representative to handle financial logins while keeping private correspondence sealed. Chapter 740 lets you draw those lines, but only if you draw them on purpose. The default — letting the provider’s terms or a court decide — is the worst of both worlds.
Protecting the broader estate around your digital plan
Digital assets do not exist in isolation. The same families who need crypto succession planning often need long-term-care and asset-protection strategy too, especially professionals approaching retirement who want to shield what they have built. Vehicles such as a can sit alongside your digital directives as part of one coherent plan, so that the trustee who manages a protected brokerage account also has clear authority to access it electronically. Florida residents working with practices like should expect their digital provisions to be drafted into the trust and power of attorney from the start, not bolted on later.
If you have not yet built the underlying documents, that is the place to begin. Our overview of Florida wills and the realities of Florida probate explain how the pieces fit together before you layer digital access on top.
A practical checklist for South Florida professionals
- Inventory. Build a private, regularly updated list of accounts by category — not passwords in plain text, but a map of what exists and where.
- Use online tools. Set up Google Inactive Account Manager, Facebook Legacy Contact, and Apple Legacy Contact where offered.
- Update the documents. Add Chapter 740 digital-asset authority to your will, trust, and durable power of attorney, deciding deliberately about content disclosure.
- Secure the keys separately. Keep crypto seed phrases and master passwords out of any document that could become public, using a sealed or hardware method.
- Plan the practice. If you own a professional practice, address EHR, patient records, and digital wind-down explicitly.
- Name a tech-capable fiduciary. Choose someone who can actually execute, or pair your personal representative with a digital-savvy successor.
- Revisit annually. Accounts and platforms change; your plan should be reviewed at least once a year and after any major financial or platform change.
The families who navigate a death or incapacity smoothly are almost always the ones who treated digital property as real property — because it is. If you are ready to put these protections in place, schedule a consultation and bring your account inventory; an hour of planning now can spare your loved ones months of locked doors later.
Frequently asked questions
What law governs digital assets in Florida estate plans?
The Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, found in Chapter 740 of the Florida Statutes, is the primary law. It sets a priority order: a provider’s online tool first, then your estate planning documents, then the terms of service by default.
Can my personal representative just use my passwords?
No. A password is a credential, not legal authority. Using it can violate the account’s terms of service and federal laws such as the Stored Communications Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Your documents must expressly grant Chapter 740 authority instead.
How do I pass on cryptocurrency without putting keys in my will?
Separate authority from access. Your will, trust, or power of attorney grants the legal right to control the crypto, while the private keys or seed phrase are stored through a sealed instruction, hardware device, or trust mechanism that never becomes part of the public probate record.
Does my physician practice need special digital planning?
Yes. Patient records remain confidential under HIPAA after death, and electronic health record systems may require orderly transfer or retention. A digital plan should name who can access practice systems and how the practice’s digital infrastructure is wound down or sold.
What is an online tool and should I use one?
An online tool is a provider’s built-in directive, such as Google’s Inactive Account Manager or Facebook’s Legacy Contact. Under Florida law it generally overrides your will, so use it deliberately and make sure your choices match the rest of your estate plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
What law governs digital assets in Florida estate plans?
The Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, found in Chapter 740 of the Florida Statutes, is the primary law. It sets a priority order: a provider’s online tool first, then your estate planning documents (will, trust, or power of attorney), then the terms of service by default.
Can my personal representative just use my passwords?
No. A password is a credential, not legal authority. Using it can violate the account’s terms of service and federal laws such as the Stored Communications Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Your documents must expressly grant Chapter 740 authority over digital assets instead.
How do I pass on cryptocurrency without putting keys in my will?
Separate authority from access. Your will, trust, or power of attorney grants the legal right to control the crypto, while the private keys or seed phrase are stored through a sealed instruction, hardware device, or trust mechanism that never becomes part of the public probate record.
Does my physician practice need special digital planning?
Yes. Patient records remain confidential under HIPAA after death, and electronic health record systems may require orderly transfer or retention. A digital plan should name who can access practice systems and how the practice’s digital infrastructure is wound down or transferred.
What is an online tool and should I use one?
An online tool is a provider’s built-in directive, such as Google’s Inactive Account Manager or Facebook’s Legacy Contact. Under Florida law it generally overrides your will, so use it deliberately and make sure your choices match the rest of your estate plan.
