Are Millennials Estate Planning?

According to new research, 72% of U.S. millennials (ages 25 to 40) with wills created them or updated them in the past year.

MSN’s recent article entitled “Here's why millennials are so into end-of-life planning reports that more than two-thirds of millennials don’t have a will. While the pandemic brought greater attention to end-of-life planning among millennials, they’re still largely unprepared. According to the 1Password findings, 68% of millennials don’t have a will.

As a result, respondents say that descendants would lose access to an average of $22,500. Only 38% have clarity over who should handle their digital assets after they die. Among those who do have a will, here’s what sparked it:

• COVID-19 crisis (55%);
• Having a child (36%);
• Death of a celebrity or public figure (22%); and
• Buying a house (17%).

With a digital transfer, the primary concern for respondents is giving their executor login credentials to banking and financial accounts (67%).

About 57% of millennial respondents say granting access to social media accounts is more important than giving access to email, subscription and e-commerce accounts.

The pandemic also provided a wake-up call for millennials and their end-of-life planning. However, there are some areas of estate planning that are uncertain. The survey finds 51% of millennials will be responsible for the execution of their parents’ wills. However, only 36% have access to their parents’ online account passwords.

While about a third (34%) of respondents said they’ve talked with their parents about their digital assets in the past year, about half (52%) have never discussed it with their parents or can’t recall the conversation.

Among those who have handled the execution of wills, 63% say it was more challenging than they anticipated to access accounts after a death.

Reference: MSN (Dec. 13, 2021) “Here's why millennials are so into end-of-life planning”