Set up and use surviving-spouse plan access

Surviving-spouse access preserves planning continuity without sharing a login

Surviving-spouse access lets the plan owner designate a spouse who may create a separate YARCalc account and continuing Home plan after the owner dies. It avoids the unsafe practice of sharing the owner’s password and gives the survivor a starting point for reviewing the household plan in a changed legal and tax situation.

Setting it up does not create a second everyday login for the spouse. While the owner is alive, the code should be stored privately for the future and can be revoked. The original account and plan remain the owner’s.

Prepare the code only if this continuity fits the household

The owner should designate the spouse’s exact name and a separate email address the spouse controls, confirm the current password, and store the one-time displayed successor code somewhere the spouse can retrieve after death. The code should not be placed in an ordinary shared message or exposed beside other account credentials.

This feature is optional. It is useful when preserving the planning work would reduce the survivor’s burden, but it is not a substitute for an estate plan, durable authority, beneficiary designations, or institution-specific access arrangements.

Review the designation after an email change, marriage change, death, or estate-plan revision. Revoke an unused code that should no longer provide the continuation path.

The survivor creates a new account and reviews a copied plan

After the owner dies, the designated spouse opens Continue a household plan, enters the private code and exact designated email, confirms the death date, makes the required attestation, and creates a private password. The spouse initiates the process; the owner’s credentials are not used.

YARCalc creates a separate survivor account and a new Home plan. The spouse becomes Self and role-based ownership references are swapped. The original plan remains in the original account. If creation is interrupted after credentials are established, repeating the same code, email, and password resumes the process instead of deliberately creating another survivor plan.

The copied plan is a starting point, not a finished survivor analysis. Review personal dates, filing status, Social Security, pensions, account ownership, beneficiary information, basis, property title, income, healthcare, and spending before relying on any result.

Treat every survivor assumption as newly consequential

Confirm that the survivor is now shown as Self and that accounts, income, property, and goals belong to the correct person. Read the first survivor year in Projection, including changed filing status, continuing benefits, taxes, healthcare, and household spending.

Update balances and legal ownership from current statements rather than assuming the copied values remain current. Rerun Projection and Stochastic Analysis after the review; saved results from the former household do not establish the survivor’s new position.

Keep the original owner’s planning history conceptually separate from the survivor’s new Home. The copy preserves useful information without claiming that every prior intention or strategy still applies.

The code authorizes plan continuity only

The attestation and code do not prove death, grant power of attorney, establish executor or trustee authority, transfer property, change beneficiaries, or provide access to a bank, brokerage, insurer, or government benefit.

The survivor must independently review legal ownership, basis, taxes, Social Security, Medicare, insurance, estate administration, and institution requirements with current documents and appropriate professionals.