The page your household would need if you were not there

There is a settled way of talking about a household financial record. It is worth asking how much of it survives contact with the detail.

What people actually need first

In the days after a death or a sudden incapacity, the practical problem is finding out what exists: which bank, which insurer, which pension, which solicitor. A will directs where assets go and does not tell anyone where they are. Paperless statements mean the traditional method of waiting for post to arrive no longer works.

One sheet listing institutions and reference numbers solves the problem almost entirely.

What to put on it

Banks and account references, mortgage and loan providers, pensions including old employers, insurance policies, investments and any regular commitments. Professional contacts — solicitor, accountant, financial adviser — and the location of original documents such as the will and property deeds. Utilities, subscriptions and anything that would otherwise keep charging or be cut off.

On an ordinary week, amounts are not required, which removes most of the discomfort people feel about writing it.

The digital problem

Accounts that exist only online, with no paper trail, are effectively invisible to anyone who does not know they are there. Sharing passwords is generally against terms of service and can create problems of its own, so the practical approach is listing that an account exists rather than how to access it. A password manager with a documented emergency access arrangement is one route, and providers' legacy or memorial processes are another.

Cryptocurrency and similar assets are the extreme case: with no record, they are usually unrecoverable.

Where to keep it

It needs to be findable by the right people and not by everyone, which usually means a known secure location rather than a hidden one. Telling two people where it is, ideally in different households, covers the case where one of them is unavailable. Keeping it with the will, and telling the executor, is the simplest arrangement.

Where it helps most, a copy that nobody knows about is the same as no copy.

It is useful long before a death

The same list serves a serious illness, an accident, a period abroad or simply one person being unavailable when a bill needs paying. It also makes ordinary administration easier: renewals, switching providers, and reviewing what the household is actually paying for. Households that write one frequently find forgotten subscriptions and dormant accounts in the process.

Put simply, that immediate benefit is usually what gets it finished.

None of this is a substitute for talking to a clinician if something feels wrong.

Review it annually

Accounts open and close, providers change and pensions accumulate, so a list written once decays quietly. Attaching the review to something that already recurs — a tax deadline, a birthday, the annual household review — is what makes it happen.

For most people, the update takes minutes once the first version exists. It is one of the highest-value hours available to any household and one of the least appealing.

The takeaway

One sheet, no amounts, two people who know where it is. Then review it once a year.

Small and repeatable beats ambitious and abandoned, almost every time.