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End-of-Life Planning Checklist

An end-of-life planning checklist should turn an uncomfortable job into a clear set of records, documents, and decisions that can be reviewed over time.

Use this when you want a practical end-of-life plan that covers both urgent family needs and long-term estate administration.

What this guide covers

This guide is written as a practical reference for New Zealand families organizing private records before they become urgent. It focuses on the details that make a plan understandable to someone who may need to act quickly and carefully.

Start with the documents and contacts someone would need first.
Connect financial accounts, policies, and digital assets to supporting records.
Keep the checklist current with reminders and selective trusted access.

List the decisions and people first

The checklist should name who needs to be contacted, who can confirm legal or financial details, and who should receive selected access if something happens.

Emergency contacts, executor, trustee, and advisor names
Healthcare, care, household, pet, and business continuity notes
Family instructions that should be read before deeper estate work begins

Collect the documents that prove the plan

End-of-life planning documents are easier to use when each file is connected to the account, asset, policy, directive, or instruction it supports.

Wills, trusts, directives, powers of attorney, and ID records
Insurance, property, banking, investment, and retirement documents
Provider contacts, renewal dates, and review reminders

Include digital assets and online accounts

A modern end-of-life checklist should account for online accounts, devices, password managers, cloud storage, subscriptions, and digital records that can otherwise disappear from view.

Account references and recovery paths
Device, password manager, and backup notes
Digital files that should be preserved, transferred, or closed

Prepare access without publishing everything

The best checklist makes the right information findable while keeping the full vault private. Share by role, review access, and avoid emailing sensitive files.

Create sections for family, executors, and advisors
Review recipients after role or relationship changes
Keep high-risk credentials out of plain text handoffs

How this fits in Legacy Toolkit

Use this guide as a working checklist inside the desktop vault. Create or review the relevant information profile sections, attach files in the document vault, add reminders where information can go stale, and prepare trusted access without sharing the whole vault by default.

The goal is not to turn a private life into a public folder. The goal is to keep the plan legible, current, and controlled so the right person can find the right information without receiving the whole vault by default.

Profile sections keep the plan readable instead of turning it into a loose notes file.
Document attachments keep proof beside the account, asset, policy, or instruction it supports.
Trusted access lets you prepare a handoff without exposing the full vault by default.

End-of-life planning checklist

Treat this as a first pass, not a final legal packet. Review the items, fill in what is missing, and return to the plan whenever a provider, account, advisor, family role, or document changes.

Record emergency contacts, family instructions, and advisor details.
Attach legal, financial, insurance, identity, and healthcare documents.
List accounts, debts, subscriptions, property, and benefits.
Document devices, digital assets, backups, and account recovery paths.
Set reminders and trusted access for the people who may need context.

New Zealand references

These links are included for context. Legacy Toolkit helps organise records and does not replace legal, financial, tax, medical, or court advice.

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