Show HN: LastShelf – an emergency map of your family's documents bills& contacts

[sbrown12]

After my father was diagnosed with Stage 3 kidney cancer, my family was thrown into a tailspin. Getting second opinions, planning surgery, ensuring insurance coverage, coping with the fear. It was a lot to process.

In the middle of dealing with all the medical logistics, I realized none of our family could answer if he: - Had a medical directive? - How to trigger his life insurance policy? - Where is his will and who is the executor? - What bank accounts and credit cards existed? - What bills are not on auto-pay? - When these bills due and how are they paid?

That wasn’t solved by password managers or budgeting apps. So I built it.

LastShelf: automatically discovers, documents and distributes a map of critical life documents, expenses & contacts in the event of an emergency. Register here: https://www.lastshelf.ai/

If you’ve lived through a similar crisis, I really want to hear what would have made the process easier.

Anyone who shares their feedback with me will get the first year free. Send a note to support [at] lastshelf.ai

[edoceo]

My experience estate planning is that there are a lot of sensitive details in the documents. The tried a true method is the estate planning binder. Typically there is a worksheet to guide with the collection of information and then trusted parties review and find the missing details and then also work through the complex planning part. LLMs have, this far, not been good at that.

In the last 20 that I've done the biggest hurdle has been sitting down to do the work. A smarter worksheet doesn't solve the human problem of: "I'll get to this later".

Another critical part this doesn't handle is having a trusted party to help during the shit storm. Your estate lawyer and/or executor provide more than organized data.

[sbrown12]

We definitely do not intend to replace estate lawyers or executors who create these documents and manage their execution. Our goal is just make it easier to gather all the critical documents, contacts, bills, etc...and share clear instructions for what to do when so families know what exists and what next steps are during a stressful time.

[edoceo]

Yea, I hear you on that. The point is that the answer is known and folk don't do it anyway - like "eat more vegetables". It's an awareness and action problem. There are dozens of tools exactly like this. Many are designed by someone dealing with it the first time (maybe this is another case). And they solve the easiest part of the shit situation. This component and all the other harder ones would be sorted by a planner. But ALSO, this easy part could have been solved if anyone in the family took initiative - and they don't. When you have this problem it's already too late.

This product is literally a free document one could download and write on.

If folk aren't doing that, why would they use a new shiny (unproven) tool that cost money?

[fragmede]

Because it's shiney and new and costs money? It's like paying for a gym membership. Because it costs money incentivizes you to use the membership.

[ShinyLeftPad]

Critical stuff like this is definitely a good idea to delegate to an LLM.

[summermusic]

Yes, especially a subscription AI service that will exist forever and ever.

[kaikai]

I have a Google doc shared with close friends and family that I keep updated with info in case I’m seriously injured or dead. It doesn’t have passwords or anything harmful to leak, just things like what banks I use, contact info for various friend communities and my job, and an (unofficial) medical directive.

It’s free, took me very little time to set up, and in case of an accident should give people enough leads to make their lives easier.

The need is there, but I would absolutely not trust a subscription startup with “ai” in the url to handle this kind of info.

[duttish]

Now I know one thing I'll do this weekend, great idea.

[programmertote]

100% what I do. :) Simple and gets the job done.

[lwhsiao]

One thing that I couldn't understand from the website: how is this triggered?

This sounds useful, but I also want an automated way to distribute the information when needed. Maybe a dead man's switch of sorts?

For example, suppose I'm a single adult, and I set this all up. Then I go for a hike and disappear forever. How can the trigger of distribution happen?

[sbrown12]

In our earliest versions we experimented with a dead mans switch, but feedback was that folks would forget to reply to the monthly keep alive and we'd risk triggering too many false alarms. So we opted for picking trusted family members who you grant ongoing read only access. That way in an emergency, they already have the access they need to act.

We're 100% open to the idea of a dead man's switch, just want to find a way to avoid triggering too many false alarms. Any ideas on how to do that?

[Calazon]

Optional feature, off by default, customizable time interval, and a warning about false alarms?

Even with that you'd likely still trigger false alarms regularly, though they would be the responsibility of the user. Not sure whether it would be a worthwhile tradeoff overall.

[sbrown12]

Those are good suggestions. Thanks for sharing.

[sublinear]

Maybe an optional app? Send the keepalive email and alert the trusted family members when the app stops pinging back.

This would at least indicate that the phone is turned off or lost signal. All of this should be configurable by the user including thresholds before alert, reply timeout, etc.

I think expecting a ping from the app every 24h is a sensible default. Most people already "call to see if their phone is dead". This just automates it.

[lwhsiao]

> So we opted for picking trusted family members who you grant ongoing read only access. That way in an emergency, they already have the access they need to act.

I'd just comment that this is probably a dealbreaker in some cases. Just because I would want a trusted family member to have access to my accounts/trust/will/etc. after my death is a _very_ different question than whether I would want them to have read-only access while I'm living.

[graerg]

I built if-i-go-missing.com along these lines. Weird, I’m also a Brown!

[sbrown12]

Hahah, great minds think alike :)

[sequoia]

a hundred dollars a year for this?? What does the service even do with that money? I pay this for 20 years so you can share a google doc upon my demise?

I must be missing something.

[avs733]

Having dealt with this with a couple of family members, set it a similar system for my spouse and I, and also been tech support for numerous friends doing somethign similar I'll provide a couple notes

* The biggest product market fit note to me is that this misunderstands the information access challenge. My experience has been that you are on 'step 2' of the information - organizing it and accessing it. Step 1 is getting the information out of the person, all of it, correctly, willingly. These are hard conversations and structuring them is less of a challenge than the emotional piece.

* In the zero trust/everything is multifactor age what I have really found is that access to cell phone and email are the most critical. I don't see where this prioritizes those...because I won't be able to login to anything of (say) my mom's from my laptop until I have those two things to verify identity.

* I can't quite tell whether you are pitching this at 'healthy people to set this up for the future' (a nonstarter because of annual subscription cost) or 'healthy person helping sick family member' (they have enough going on that starting using a new piece of software is an unsustainable cognitive load delta no matter the ease).

Big picture...what I recommend for friends and family is a password manager with a deadmans switch someone else (your estate personal rep) can trigger. That, plus good estate planning is basically sufficient. You should (and almost always can) have some document in there listing major accounts nad bills that is mostly up to date. This stuff doesn't have to be perfect it just needs to be good enough because no matter why you are activating it perfect is not going to be an option or even helpful.

[sbrown12]

100% agree the first step is discovering what exists. Our goal is to make that discovery less intimidating by automating as much discovery as possible.

When a user connects their email address we automatically search for 70 categories of critical documents & bills (ex: property tax, homeowners insurance, life insurance, etc...) so all they have to do is click yes to confirm instead of trying to remember what's important and where it's stored.

The next step is series of simple yes/no questions to help folks remember what critical documents/contacts exist.

If you have other suggestions to make the process less stressful, we definitely want to hear them.

[deepspace]

Anything can happen of course, but my actuarial life expectancy is at least 30 years from now. I am 95% certain that my safe deposit box in my bank (where my info is currently stored) will still exist then. What are the odds of this site surviving that long?

[ButlerianJihad]

> 95% certain

Really now? Have you not been paying attention to the many news stories about banks that are closing out and shutting down their SDB services?

SDB are a horrible burden for banks and especially because they have little use for actual secured vaults anymore.

If you’re simply using it to squirrel away paper documents for emergency access, I strongly suggest an electronic replacement solution.

If you’re using it to store physical valuables such as watches, jewels, or negotiable instruments, then I feel sorry for you, but consider a storage locker or simply a fireproof safe.

[johntash]

I didn't know banks were closing their SDB services. I've been thinking about getting one as an offsite/offline backup for a few important things, but maybe I'll reconsider.

Searching I do see there are some companies who aren't banks and offer similar private vault services. I wonder how reliable they are.

[ButlerianJihad]

I had an SDB for a couple of months and some of the related incidents were rather surreal. I was finally persuaded against it.

I had been stashing cash and coins in there, and some USB sticks and some ID, as a backup or hedge, if something catastrophic happened to my home, or there was an extended power outage, or comms lines were down for some reason: civil unrest, natural disaster.

But I queried one of the bank managers about their backup systems and power. And he said "oh, if the power went out or something, we would obviously close down." and nobody from the public would be getting into that branch, come hell or high water. It was perfectly logical to expect that, but I had somehow thought they would be a fortress of solitude that could withstand any tempest outside.

So that's why I closed out the box, and basically my best backup plan is readiness at-home, and knowing somewhere to flee to, and/or shelter in place, if something goes wrong here.

[BrandoElFollito]

I have this for years, as a google docs shared with some people and a printout.

This is basic decency for the ones that remain and taboos should not be a reason to not do this.

It is a how to on hiw to connect yo my data, including butwarden (where the important logins are shared anyway), all banks, investment companies etc.

I also added a section on how to dumb down my smart home, but this is a niche case.

[syngrog66]

Literally nothing about this requires AI, nor would be wise to involve it, or become dependent on a startup biz service about it.

[ZackMomily]

Estate planning is so overwhelming. For the smaller, day-to-day tasks like remembering to update those important documents or bills, I use Taskai on my Android. It helps me ensure those little but vital things don't slip through the cracks.

[2Gkashmiri]

I have a keepass file that I keep fairly updated on multiple places, my phone being up to date.

A trusted family member has its password which is in their keepass.

In the event I am not around, I expect them to find the password and open the keepass.

Its less complicated this way

[sbrown12]

That's a solid approach. I've heard of folks creating a google doc, a password vault, even a binder that's in a safe deposit box. The real challenge is just that so many of us procrastinate and do not invest the time to gather all this information and make sure family know how to access it. That's what inspired me to build LastShelf - to make the process less intimidating and more accessible.

[toomuchtodo]

I use Trustworthy for this.

https://www.trustworthy.com/

[nickphx]

uhhhh why yes, i would love to give a vibecoded app access to all of my important information so it can stored for "safe" keeping... a post it note on your front door would be more secure and likely last longer.

[irickt]

Another resource to consider: How to add a Legacy Contact for your Apple Account https://support.apple.com/en-us/102631

[zmagdovitz]

Love this - awesome release.