Superannuation Instructions for Your Adult Children: An Adelaide Solo Adult’s Plan for When the Trustee Comes Asking

You live on your own in Adelaide. The kids are grown — one in the eastern suburbs, one interstate. Across your working life you’ve picked up three super accounts: the current one, the one from the job before, and a small balance still sitting with a fund you joined in your twenties. Your adult children will be the ones ringing trustees if something happens to you. The plan is to leave them a clear list — which fund, which member number, what the binding nomination says — without ever handing over a password.

The problem

Super isn’t usually part of your estate. The trustee of each fund decides who receives your death benefit, guided by your binding death benefit nomination — if one exists and is still valid. ASIC’s MoneySmart guidance on wills and estate planning is clear that beneficiary nominations need to be kept current, and that trustees retain discretion when nominations have lapsed or are ambiguous. Binding nominations typically expire every three years.

For an Adelaide solo adult, the failure mode is specific. Your adult children may not even know how many super funds you have. They certainly won’t know your member numbers. They’ll start by ringing the fund they think you were with, get told there’s no record under your name (because it’s archived under a former employer’s plan), and lose weeks. Meanwhile the trustee processes the claim on its own timeline, and any insurance attached to the super sits in limbo.

Your children don’t need your password. They need to know: which funds exist, the member number for each, whether your binding nomination is current and what it says, and who at the trustee actually handles death benefit claims.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register: you record what you own, where to find it, and who you’ve nominated to receive the instructions. The simplified version (built for individuals and families) records, per super fund: the fund name, your member number, the binding death benefit nomination status and expiry date, the trustee’s contact number, and notes about any insurance attached to the fund. It does NOT hold your password, your myGov code, or any login credential. Your adult children see the inventory you’ve prepared for them, only when you’ve authorised release.

The boundary matters: the Digital Legacy Vault is not a financial product, not a custody service, and not an advice service. It’s an instructions register. That keeps it outside the AFSL regime under Corporations Act Part 7.6, and outside AUSTRAC’s AML/CTF reporting obligations — and it’s why it can be a simple subscription rather than a regulated product.

How it works

  1. You add each super account to your vault — fund name, member number, current binding nomination details, trustee phone number, and any insurance attached.
  2. You name your adult children as recipients for the superannuation module. They accept the role and the vault records their consent under the Privacy Act’s standard for personal information about third parties.
  3. You record the date your binding nomination was last refreshed. The vault prompts you when the three-year clock is close to running out.
  4. If something happens, your children are notified per your release rules and see only the superannuation instructions module — not your other modules unless you’ve released them too.
  5. Your children contact each trustee directly with the member number and a death certificate. The trustee runs their own death benefit process. The vault accelerates the finding step, not the trustee’s decision.

Why this matters in Adelaide

Many Adelaide solo adults have worked across state government, private employers, and at least one industry fund along the way — and adult children often live interstate, making the early phone calls harder. A trustee won’t tell a daughter in Melbourne whether her Adelaide father had an account unless she can give them a member number or precise identifying details. Without a prepared list, the first month is spent rummaging through paper statements and old emails. With one, your adult children make four phone calls instead of forty, and any insurance attached to your super is far less likely to be missed.

Sources

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when the Digital Legacy Vault opens for Adelaide individuals

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when solo adults in Adelaide can register their first super module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what exists and how your adult children can find it — not your passwords, not your myGov code, and not your money.