Making Your Master List

Right now, you are the only person who knows where everything is. Which bank, which fund, which insurer, which drawer the paperwork lives in. That is perfectly fine while you are the one looking after it.

Your Master List is simply that knowledge, written down once, so it does not depend on you being available to explain it. One list covers all of it — your money, your documents and the people who advise you.

It is one of the few jobs on this website you can finish in a single sitting, and it is the one your family will be most grateful for.

The rule: enough to find, never enough to use

This is the whole principle, and it is worth getting right before you write a word.

Your list records where things are. It is a list of doors, not keys.

Write down:

• the name of the institution — the bank, the fund, the insurer, the lender
• what kind of account or policy it is
• how many you hold with them

Never write down:

• account numbers, policy numbers, member numbers or loan numbers
• PINs, passwords or security answers
• card numbers
• the HIN or SRN for any shareholding
• balances, or what anything is worth

Why you do not need the numbers

It is worth understanding what actually happens on the day someone has to step in as your Power of Attorney, because most people assume the account number is the thing that finds the door. It is not.

Your attorney steps in and rings your bank, or goes into a branch. The bank does not ask for your account number. It asks them to prove who they are, and to produce a certified copy of the Power of Attorney. Once it has both, the bank registers them and tells them which accounts you hold. A super fund, an insurer and a share registry all work the same way — they find you by your name and date of birth.

So the account number is not required to locate your asset. The list can meaningfully shorten the time spent on searching for your financial assets, and increase the time spent with you and the family.

Nor do you need the balances

Leave out what anything is worth, for the same reason and one more.

The balances are out of date the moment you write them. Keeping them current turns an afternoon’s work into a chore you will stop doing, and a list people stop updating is a list that eventually sends them looking in the wrong places. Whoever needs the figures will get them from the institution, accurate to the day.

There is also the matter of who reads it. A list of where things are is a practical document. A list of what everything is worth is a different thing entirely — it invites comparison, and it can change how people behave towards you long before it is ever needed. Your family does not need to know what you have in order to help you look after it.

What to write down

You can work through these in one sitting.

It does not matter what you write it on. A sheet of paper, a notebook, a page on the computer — whatever you will actually keep up to date. One line per item is enough.

If you bank or invest somewhere that sends nothing in the post, write it down first. Accounts with no paperwork and no branch are the ones nobody will find by looking through your drawers.

Money coming in. Your pension or Centrelink payments, and any money that arrives regularly.

Bank accounts. The bank, and how many accounts you hold there. No account numbers are required. If you bank with more than one, list them all.

Super. The name of each fund. If you have more than one, say so.

Investments. Where they are held — the broker, the platform or the share registry. The name is enough; it is the one thing that tells someone where to look.

Money you owe. The lender, and what the loan is for. A mortgage, a car loan, a credit card provider.

Property. The address of anything you own. Note whether you own it with someone else.

Insurance. Each insurer, and what the policy covers. Life, home, contents, car, health, funeral. The policy number is not required.

Your people. Your solicitor, your accountant, your financial adviser, your doctor. Name and phone number. This is often the most useful page in the whole list, because the right professional can reconstruct the rest.

Your documents. Your will, Enduring Power of Attorney, and Enduring Guardianship — and where the originals are kept. Our guide on getting your legal documents in order covers what each one does.

Where to keep it, and who should know

Keep the list and your important papers together in one folder, somewhere secure at home or with your solicitor.

Not in a safe deposit box that only you can open. If your attorney or executor cannot get into it, the list cannot do its job at the moment it is needed.

Then the step that makes all of it work: tell the people who may one day need it that the list exists, and exactly where to find it. Your attorney, your executor, and anyone else helping you. A list nobody knows about is the same as no list at all.

Keeping it current

Go through it once a year, and whenever something changes — you close an account, change insurers, move house, or change who is helping you.

An out-of-date list sends people looking for things that are no longer there, which is worse than no list at all.