I’m 28. Here’s Everything My Family Wouldn’t Know If I Died This Weekend
My SIPs are on auto-debit. My crypto is on an exchange my parents have never heard of. My term insurance login is in a Gmail I check once a month. My family knows about maybe 30% of this.
I did an honest audit last weekend. Sat down with a notebook and listed every financial account I have. Then scored each one: would my family know it exists? Could they access it?
The results were bad.
The Audit: What I Found
Here’s what a typical 28-year-old’s financial life looks like. This is mine, but it could be yours.
Things my family knows about:
- Salary account (they know the bank, not the branch)
- One FD my mom helped me open
That’s it. Two items.
Things my family has no idea about:
- SIPs in two different mutual funds on Groww
- A few stocks on Zerodha
- EPF account from my current job (and one unclaimed from a previous job)
- Term insurance policy bought online through PolicyBazaar
- Health insurance (company-provided, separate from parents’ plan)
- Crypto on CoinDCX
- PPF account I opened on a whim 3 years ago
- NPS Tier 1 account
- Two savings accounts (one barely used, but has some money)
- UPI linked to three apps
- Credit card (with auto-pay, so bills will keep coming)
Eleven items. My family knows about two.
The Math That Scared Me
I added it all up. Roughly:
- EPF: Rs 4-5 lakh (two jobs combined)
- SIPs: Rs 2.5 lakh
- Stocks: Rs 1.2 lakh
- Term insurance: Rs 1 crore (if I die)
- PPF: Rs 1.8 lakh
- NPS: Rs 80,000
- Crypto: Rs 45,000
- Savings accounts: Rs 1.5 lakh
- FD: Rs 2 lakh
That’s roughly Rs 14-15 lakh in actual savings, plus Rs 1 crore in insurance. Not nothing. Not even close to nothing.
And my family can access exactly Rs 2 lakh of it (the FD) without a lengthy legal process.
What Happens to the Rest?
This is where it gets ugly.
Bank accounts go dormant. If nobody operates my accounts for 2 years, RBI classifies them as inoperative. After 10 years with no activity, the money gets transferred to RBI’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund. As of March 2024, Rs 78,213 crore sits unclaimed in Indian banks. Some of that is from people whose families simply didn’t know the accounts existed.
Mutual funds and stocks become invisible. My family doesn’t know I use Groww or Zerodha. If dividends go unclaimed for 7 consecutive years, shares get transferred to the government’s IEPF fund. Recoverable? Yes. Easy? Not remotely.
Crypto disappears. CoinDCX doesn’t have a nominee feature. No Indian crypto exchange does, as far as I can tell. My family doesn’t know the app exists, let alone the password. That Rs 45,000 is effectively gone.
Term insurance goes unclaimed. The irony. I pay Rs 800/month for Rs 1 crore coverage. If my family doesn’t know the policy exists, they can’t claim it. As of March 2024, over Rs 22,000 crore in insurance money sits unclaimed with Indian insurers.
EPF from my old job? I switched companies 2 years ago. Never transferred the PF. My family doesn’t know the UAN, the company name, or the fact that this money exists. It’ll sit there until someone figures it out, which could be never.
The OTP Problem Nobody Talks About
Here’s the thing that really got to me.
Every single one of these accounts is locked behind my phone number. OTPs go to my phone. My banking app uses fingerprint authentication. Zerodha sends OTPs. Groww sends OTPs. Even my email needs an OTP.
If I die, my phone is locked. My parents live in another city. They don’t know my phone PIN. They can’t access my email. They can’t get OTPs.
Getting a SIM card transferred after someone dies isn’t straightforward. You need a death certificate, legal heir proof, and a visit to the telecom office. That takes weeks. Meanwhile, your family can’t log in to anything.
The Gap Between “Having Money” and “Family Getting Money”
This is what I didn’t understand until I did this audit. Having financial assets is step one. Your family being able to find and claim those assets is a completely different problem.
You could have Rs 1 crore in term insurance and your family might not see a rupee of it. Not because the claim gets rejected, but because they never file one. They didn’t know the policy existed.
What I Did About It
I spent about 45 minutes fixing this. Here’s exactly what I did:
1. Made a list of every account. Bank accounts, investments, insurance, loans, crypto. Everything. Account numbers, platform names, registered phone numbers, registered email IDs.
2. Checked nominees on everything. My Zerodha nominee was still my mother from when I was 22. I’m married now. Updated it to my wife. Same with my mutual funds and bank account. Read more about when and how to update nominees.
3. Sent one WhatsApp message. Texted my wife a photo of the list. “If something happens to me, this is everything I have and where it is.” Took 2 minutes.
4. Told my parents about the term insurance. Called them. “I have a term insurance policy with HDFC Life. Policy number is [X]. If something happens, call this number.” That call took 5 minutes.
5. Wrote down my EPF details. Both UAN numbers, both company names. Added it to the list.
Your Turn
You’re reading this because you’re probably in the same situation. You have accounts your family doesn’t know about. Money they can’t access. Insurance they can’t claim.
This isn’t a problem for 50-year-olds with farmhouses. This is your problem. Right now.
Do this today:
- Open your phone. Count your finance apps. How many does your family know about?
- Check your nominees. Are they still the right people?
- Share the basics with one person. A one-page snapshot is enough for now.
The accounts exist. The money is there. Make sure someone who matters can actually find it.
This is exactly what Anshin is built for. One place to store what you have, who should know, and how to find it. So your family never has to guess.
This information is for educational purposes. Laws and processes vary by state and change over time. For specific legal advice, consult a qualified lawyer.