Almost every family who has lost someone describes the same week. Grief arrives first, and close behind it, a scavenger hunt. Which fund was the super with? Was there a burial plot, or did she want to be cremated? What's the password to the phone, the email, the photos? Somewhere in the house there is a drawer with the answers in it, and nobody is quite sure which drawer.
An end-of-life plan is the thing that stops that week happening. It isn't morbid, and it isn't about expecting the worst. Done once and kept roughly current, it spares the people you love a job they'll be in no state to do.
What an end-of-life plan is — and what it isn't
A will is a legal document. It directs who inherits what, and it needs to be drawn up properly — a solicitor or your state's public trustee is the right place for that conversation, and nothing here is a substitute for it. An enduring power of attorney and an advance care directive belong in the same category.
An end-of-life plan is the practical companion — the non-legal half. It answers the questions a will never gets around to:
- What accounts, policies and subscriptions exist, and who holds them
- What you'd want your funeral or memorial to look like, in as much or as little detail as you like
- Who needs to be told, and how to reach them
- Where every important document, key and password actually lives
A solicitor can't write that for you. Only you know it.
The information only you can supply
Start here: it causes the most delay and costs you the least to write down. Go account by account and record what someone else would need in order to find it: the institution, the type of account or policy, and any reference or membership number. You're not writing down balances. The point is findability, not an audit.
Work through the list most households have without thinking: everyday banking, savings, superannuation, life insurance, home and contents, car and health cover, the mortgage or the landlord, utilities, phone and internet, council rates, any loans. Then the modern layer that trips families up: streaming services, cloud photo storage, a small online business, domain names, the email address that everything else resets through.
Superannuation deserves its own line. Super is held by your fund, and the nomination you've made with the fund is a separate thing from your will — ring the fund, ask which nomination they currently have on file, and note the answer in your plan.
A family can produce a death certificate and still be locked out of the photos. For most households a written record, kept somewhere safe, is still the most reliable method — a Large Print Password & Internet Logbook keeps it legible and in one place, which matters when the reader is stressed and unfamiliar with the accounts.
The wishes worth writing down
This is the section people put off, and the one families are most grateful for. Not because the wishes are elaborate, but because without them every decision becomes a guess made under pressure — and guesses turn into disagreements between people who are already exhausted.
You don't need to plan a whole service. A few clear lines do most of the work:
- Burial or cremation, and whether there's a plot, a prepaid arrangement or a preferred funeral director
- Religious, cultural or non-religious — and who you'd want to lead it
- Music, readings, flowers or donations instead, and anything you'd rather not have
- Something small and low-key, or a proper gathering — this one question settles a surprising number of arguments
- If you've recorded a decision about organ and tissue donation, write down that you have and tell your family, because they're the ones who'll be asked
- Who should be notified, with phone numbers — old friends, former colleagues, the people your family has heard of but never met
Then add whatever no form has a box for. Which grandchild gets the ring. Where the ashes should go. The letter you've been meaning to write. A structured guide like the When I'm Gone Planner helps mainly because it asks the questions in a sensible order, so you're not facing a blank page trying to think of everything at once.
Where everything is kept
A plan that names your insurer but not where the policy is filed has done half the job. Go back through it and write the location beside each item: the filing box in the study, the safe, the solicitor's office, the folder on the desktop computer.
Include the physical things — the spare car key, the house deeds, the safe combination or where its key hangs, the caravan title, the box of certificates in the roof. If you already keep a home filing system for important documents, this step is mostly a matter of pointing at it. If you don't, building one alongside the plan is the biggest single improvement you can make, because the plan becomes a map to a place that genuinely exists. An Ultimate Home Management Binder gives those records a permanent home rather than a pile that migrates around the house.
One caution: store the plan separately from the passwords if you can, and never somewhere only you can reach. A safe nobody can open isn't safekeeping.
Make it findable, then keep it current
A plan nobody knows about is the same as no plan. Tell at least two people it exists and where it is — ideally your executor and one other. You don't have to show them the contents. "There's a labelled folder in the study filing box, everything you'll need is in it" is enough.
Then set a review. Once a year suits most households — pick a date you'll remember, like the week you do your tax, and give it twenty minutes. Beyond that, update it whenever something real changes:
- A new account, insurer, fund or loan, or an old one closed
- A move, a marriage, a separation, a death in the family
- A change of executor, solicitor or power of attorney
- Any change to your wishes, however small
If you're organising this alongside other planning for an ageing parent, our printable bundles group the related planners together so you're not assembling the pieces one at a time.
None of it takes as long as people fear — an afternoon gets the bones down, a second sitting fills the gaps. What you hand over isn't paperwork — it's permission for your family to grieve without also having to investigate.
Frequently asked questions
Do I still need a will if I have an end-of-life plan?
Yes — they do different jobs. A will is a legal document directing who receives your estate, and it has to be prepared and signed correctly to be effective, which is a conversation for a solicitor or your state's public trustee. An end-of-life plan is the practical record beside it: accounts, wishes, contacts and locations. The plan makes the will easier to act on, but it doesn't replace it.
At what age should I put one together?
Whenever there are people who'd be left sorting it out — which for most adults means now rather than later. Younger households often have the messiest digital footprint and the least written down, so even a short plan can be worth a great deal.
Is it safe to write passwords down on paper?
For most households a written record kept somewhere secure beats the alternative, which is usually a handful of passwords nobody else knows and no way to recover them. The risk to manage is location, not paper: keep the book somewhere private and lockable rather than in a kitchen drawer, keep it apart from the documents it unlocks, and make sure one trusted person knows it exists and how to reach it.