A Will Isn't the Whole Plan: The Information Your Family May Still Need

Having a properly drafted will is one of the most valuable things a person can do for their family. If you have one, you're already ahead of roughly half of Canadian adults. If you don't, that conversation with a lawyer matters more than anything in this article.

But there's a gap that estate lawyers see constantly, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the legal work. A will settles legal questions. It rarely functions as an operating manual for a life.

What a will is built to do

A will names who is in charge of your estate — an executor, or an estate trustee in Ontario, or a liquidator in Quebec. It directs how your property should be distributed. It can appoint guardians for minor children and set up trusts. It gives your representative the legal standing to act.

Those are the right things for it to do, and they're the things nothing else can do. This article isn't an argument for doing less legal planning. It's about what happens the morning after.

What it usually doesn't contain

A will typically describes categories of property, not an inventory. It says who inherits, not what exists. An executor holding a perfectly valid will still has to answer questions like:

• Which banks and credit unions hold accounts, and which branches?
• Are there registered accounts — RRSPs, TFSAs, RESPs, a RRIF — and who are the named beneficiaries?
• Is there life insurance, with which insurer, and under which policy number?
• Is there group coverage through an employer or a professional association?
• Who is the accountant, and where are the last few years of returns?
• What bills are on automatic payment, and which need to keep being paid?
• Is there a business, and who has signing authority in the meantime?
• What digital services exist, and which ones should be closed?
• Where are the physical documents, the safety deposit box key, the spare car keys?
• Who needs to be told, in what order?

None of that belongs in a will. All of it lands on the executor in the first two weeks.

Why the gap costs real money

Unclaimed benefits are the clearest example. Life insurers generally don't learn that a policyholder has died unless someone tells them, and a policy nobody knows about is a policy nobody claims. The same goes for a pension from an employer three jobs ago, or a small account at an institution the family never used.

Then there's time. An executor who has to reconstruct a financial life from paper mail and hunches spends months doing it — often while grieving, often while holding down a job, sometimes while paying for professional help to do work that a written list would have made unnecessary.

The complementary relationship

Your estate documents provide legal direction. A Life Box organizes the practical information surrounding your life.

They serve different purposes and neither substitutes for the other. A perfectly organized information system doesn't distribute an estate — only a valid will and the applicable law do that. A perfectly drafted will doesn't tell your executor which credit union you use.

What to organize alongside your will

1. 1The will itself: where the signed original is kept, and who prepared it. An unsigned copy in a drawer is not the same thing as knowing the original is at your lawyer's office.
2. 2Your powers of attorney and personal directive, and who holds them.
3. 3A list of financial institutions and account types — not balances, just what exists and where.
4. 4Insurance policies, including group coverage, with insurer and policy numbers.
5. 5Named beneficiaries on registered accounts and insurance, which pass outside the will and are frequently out of date.
6. 6Professional contacts: lawyer, accountant, advisor, broker, employer.
7. 7Business continuity information if you own or co-own a company.
8. 8Digital accounts that matter, and how the primary email can be recovered.
9. 9Recurring obligations that must continue, and subscriptions that should stop.
10. 10Personal wishes and messages that don't belong in a legal document.

Talk to your executor

One conversation is worth a great deal. Confirm the person you've named is willing. Tell them where your will is, and tell them your important information is organized and how they'd reach it. An executor who knows the map exists starts from a completely different place than one who starts with a drawer.