Superannuation Instructions for Your Adult Children: A Perth Solo Plan for When You’re Not There to Explain It

You’re in Perth, you’re handling your own affairs, and the people who will eventually need to act on your behalf are your adult children — probably scattered between Perth, the eastern states, and somewhere overseas. You’ve got at least two super accounts, possibly an old one from a job you left years ago, and your kids have no idea which fund holds what. The plan is to leave them a clean inventory — fund names, member numbers, the current state of your binding nomination — without ever handing over a password.

The problem

Australia’s super system was not designed for solo planners with dispersed adult children. ASIC’s MoneySmart guidance on wills and estate planning makes the point that super is generally not part of your estate — it’s paid by the trustee under super law, often guided by your binding death benefit nomination. Those nominations typically lapse every three years. When a nomination is unclear, lapsed, or contested, the trustee uses discretion, and the family waits — sometimes months — while competing claims are assessed.

Your adult children don’t need your super login. They need to know: which funds you hold, what member numbers identify each account, when your binding nomination was last refreshed and who it names, whether there’s life insurance attached to any fund, and which trustee contact centre to call. Without that, the first weeks after a death or capacity event go to phone-tree archaeology, not to your kids actually getting on with the trustee’s process.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register. The simplified version (built for individuals and families) records, per super account: the fund name, your member number, the binding death benefit nomination status and expiry date, the trustee’s claims contact number, and notes about any insurance attached to the fund. It does NOT hold your password, your MyGov code, or any credential. Your adult children see only 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 a financial-advice service. It’s an instructions register — what exists, where to find it, who to contact. That keeps it outside the AFSL regime under Corporations Act Part 7.6 and outside AUSTRAC’s AML/CTF reporting obligations, which is why it can be a straightforward subscription rather than a regulated product. Personal information you record about yourself and your children is handled under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.

How it works

  1. You add each super account to your Digital Legacy Vault — fund name, member number, current binding nomination, trustee phone number, any attached insurance.
  2. You name one or more of your adult children as the recipient for the superannuation module. The vault records their consent before they can ever receive the instructions.
  3. You record the date your binding nomination was last refreshed. The vault prompts you before the three-year clock runs out so you can refresh it with each trustee directly.
  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 those too.
  5. Your children contact each trustee with the member number and a death certificate (or capacity documentation). The trustee follows its own death benefit or claims process. The vault accelerates the finding step — it does not bypass the trustee’s decision.

Why this matters in Perth

Solo adults in Perth often hold super that was built across employers in WA’s resources, healthcare, education, and public sectors — meaning two or three fund relationships is normal, and a forgotten account from a stint interstate is common. The two-to-three-hour time difference with the east coast also slows things down: a Perth-based parent’s adult child calling a Sydney-headquartered trustee from Melbourne or Brisbane loses half a day to call-window mismatch every time they have to chase missing information. A clear instruction set — what exists, where, who to call, what the binding nomination says — typically saves a family weeks of trustee back-and-forth and removes the risk that a fund is simply missed.

Sources

Join the waitlist

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

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