What Is a Digital Vault, and Do I Need One?

It allows you to securely store important documents in the cloud, share them when necessary with loved ones

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

Comments

Published March 21, 2025

Most everyone of a certain age has accumulated dozens if not hundreds of important documents:

Birth certificates, marriage licenses, passports
Bonds, stock certificates, tax records
Auto, home and life insurance paperwork; deeds; loan documents; vehicle titles
Military discharge papers, medical and funeral directives
Vaccination cards, pet records and a host more.

Personal memorabilia and keepsakes are also part of the stash.

From time to time, you may want or need to share these records, even after your death. Family, close friends, caregivers, estate planners and lawyers may be on that list.

What you share with your spouse, kids and parents will surely differ from what your accountant or real estate agent needs to see.

That’s the idea behind digital vaults from start-ups including GoodTrust, Prisidio and Trustworthy. The companies let you store digital versions of important documents and sentimental items in the cloud.

AARP and Prisidio recently partnered on an AARP-branded digital vault. Think of these vaults as a digital version of a safe deposit box, but a service that lets you determine who gets to see each piece in that box and when each person gets to see it.

Vaults allow you to organize, find what you need

Digital vaults can help you organize all of this stuff yourself, allowing you to gather sensitive and valuable papers from physical filing cabinets, shoeboxes and off-site storage.

As digital documents become more common, you may not even have paper versions of some financials. That means files could be scattered in online storage lockers such as Apple’s iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.

AARP membership add-on

AARP and Prisidio have teamed up to offer a $20-a-year add-on to AARP’s regular $15 membership, the AARP Digital Vault, a secure online way to save and share your most important files.

“The metaphor for Trustworthy is the treasure map: Where do you go to find all the important things?” asks Nathaniel Robinson, Trustworthy’s founder and chief executive. “You might have a safety deposit box at the local bank that has some things in it. But if no one knows it exists, they’re never going to find it or know how to access it.”

Prisidio’s co-founder and CEO, Glenn Shimkus, has a similar take: “What I want to do is help people gain control of their important information and documents, keep it safe, get it to others securely and ultimately make sure nothing is lost when something happens to you.”

Important digital items don’t have to be official documents

What you own doesn’t have to carry a high monetary value. But it may mean the world to you and your family.

Shimkus categorizes these things as, well, “things.” But they’re also memories associated with things.

“My dad has a hope chest in his vault that is worth probably $5 in a garage sale,” he says. “But to my dad and now to my family, it’s one of the greatest heirlooms we have because it is the only physical connection my dad had to his mom because she died on the birthing table. Because of Prisidio, we literally have videos of my dad sitting right next to it [saying], ‘This was my mom’s wedding ring. This was my mom in the yearbook.’ ”

All of life’s big moments, whether buying a house or finding a new partner, “typically have an account or document related to them,” says GoodTrust CEO Rikard Steiber, who started his company after his father passed away.

Digital vaults offer protection from natural disasters

You’re likely asking: Why not store all this stuff in a physical vault at a bank or in a safe inside your own home? That remains an option. Bank vaults and digital vaults don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

But paper and other physical media, such as slides and home movies, are fragile. They can be damaged or lost in fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. They can be stolen, too.

Anywhere, anytime access is advantage over bank box

What’s more, digital vaults provide 24/7 immediacy. You can access them from anywhere with an internet connection, via computer, tablet or a smartphone app.

Contrast that with your bank, which may be closed when you suddenly need an item. You also may be miles away traveling for work or on vacation when something comes up or you need to share a file with someone who is out of town.

“I still have original documents in my physical safe here in Florida,” Shimkus says. “But I have digital copies of all the important ones that I’ve scanned or took pictures of and put into my vault.”

How much do digital vaults cost?

Such services come at a price.

GoodTrust charges $149 for the first year and $39 for each subsequent year. The price includes attorney-crafted wills or trusts.
Prisidio charges $9.99 a month for a basic plan billed annually, $11.99 a month otherwise or $20 a year for AARP members with an add-on membership. The vault comes with 100 GB of storage and lets you add photos and video notes to describe what you have. The company’s plan covers the sensitive documents you’re storing plus the people you trust to look them over and directives to places where you keep certain items.
Trustworthy has a free component that limits you to a dozen items. For a $10 a month, your digital vault can house unlimited items. A $20-a-month plan is geared toward people who also want to keep records relating to a family business.

Other digital vault companies include Easeenet, Everplans, My Life & Wishes and Trust & Will.

Security and privacy are built in

All the companies promise robust security and privacy. Data and uploaded files are encrypted, multi-factor authentication is required for users to log into the services, and you can log in on phones and computers with facial or fingerprint recognition.

While you can store digital versions of pretty much anything in these vaults, including pictures, they’re not designed to be substitutes for the likes of iCloud or Google photos. But you can direct loved ones after you’re gone to all your online photos and provide them with log-in instructions.

The vaults aren’t necessarily meant to sub for password managers either. But a vault can include the password and log-in credentials to a password manager.

%{postComment}%

Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.