End-of-Life Planning Checklist

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 profile sections, attach the documents that support each record, add reminders where information can go stale, and share only the sections a trusted person needs for their role.

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.

Official 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.

• New Zealand Government: What to organise before you die
• New Zealand Government: What to do when someone dies
• New Zealand Government: Enduring power of attorney
• New Zealand Government: Personal care and welfare enduring power of attorney