What information do I need to gather before starting Covet?

But if you want to know what things you may want to think about beforehand, here's a list of the areas you may want to consider before entering information into Covet and creating your own estate documents.

To summarize what Covet will help you capture and organize, here are the four main topic areas:

1. Who are you? (and your spouse if applicable)
2. Who do you want to give your stuff to?
3. What stuff (assets) to you want to catalog and give away when you're done with them?
4. Who do you want to carry out your wishes in the event you cannot?

Who are you?

This is typically information everyone knows from memory - your name, address, some basic identifying information (for use after you cannot speak for yourself), etc.

Who do you want to give your stuff to?

In Covet these are called "Beneficiaries." Consider who you want to receive your stuff and in what proportions. For example: you may want to split funds in bank accounts evenly among your children or others (because monetary "stuff" is easy to split). Or you might want everyone in your beneficiary list to receive a copy of a digital file. Alternatively, physical "stuff" is difficult to split between people. No one wants to receive half a vintage guitar or 1/3 of a piece of jewelry. In cases like those you may want to give all of an asset to one person (beneficiary).

Covet makes it easy to do either scenario. You can set a "default allocation" which splits all assets set to default allocation by whatever proportions you've set across all those assets. It also allows you to set "specific allocations." To do this, you can specify a particular asset to have it's own, separate allocation, different from your default allocation settings.

Also, beneficiaries don't need to be a person. You can allocate your "stuff" to organizations, like your alma mater, a charity or other. 

What stuff do you want to catalog and gift when you're done?

These are your assets. They can be monetary, physical, or digital.

• Examples of monetary assets include bank accounts, retirement account, investment accounts, and many more.
• Examples of physical assets include your home, land, vehicles, jewelry, musical instruments, collectibles, and much more. The number and variety of things that can fall into this category are almost endless. 
• Digital files can include anything digital in nature that has value to you and/or your beneficiaries. The value of a digital asset might be monetary or sentimental. Examples might include precious family photos, a video of your baby's first steps, or an important contract that will survive you and possibly benefit your survivors. This category also can be nearly endless. Try imagining the file being deleted and lost forever, and if that thought makes you sad, perhaps consider including it in your Covet vault.

Who do you want to carry out your wishes?

Covet assists you in creating your own estate planning documents. You can make your own will and an Estate Summary which details all the things mentioned previously in this article. Some questions to consider include:

• Who do you want to be executor of your estate when you're gone? And who would be the alternate if the first person you name cannot or won't do it?
• If you were to pass away when your children are still minors, who do you want to take care of them? You may want to consider two names or sets of people for this also, in case your first pick can't or won't do it.
• Is there anyone who you want to ensure they receive nothing from your estate? Most states laws will assign some ownership rights to children, regardless if you've named them as beneficiaries or not, unless you specify that you want them "disinherited."

For more information on executors, guardians, and disinheritance, read the articles "What is an Executor and a Guardian?" and "What does Disinheritance Mean?"

That's pretty much it, at a high level. Each person's life and situation will be special and unique. Enjoy the process, the insights, and remember that you don't need to do it all in one sitting. Additionally, once you've got your vault populated to a point where you are feeling good about it, we know that life changes. As long as your subscription to Covet is active, you can come back and make any change you like, whenever you like with not extra costs. 

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Covet does not provide any legal, investment, accounting, financial, and/or tax advice. The Covet site includes access to software and self-help materials, which are not substitutes for the advice of an attorney, financial advisor and/or accountant.