The End-of-Life Planning Checklist for Australians

End-of-life planning isn't about dying. It's about writing things down while it's easy — so that one day, the people you love aren't left guessing. This checklist walks through everything worth recording, in plain English, for Australians.

When someone dies or is suddenly incapacitated, their family typically spends weeks — sometimes months — playing detective. Which bank? Which super fund? Is there a Will, and where is it? What did they want? Who's the accountant? What's the password to the email account where all the bills arrive?

None of that detective work is caused by a lack of love. It's caused by a lack of a list. Here's the list.

How to use this checklist

Don't try to do it all in one sitting. Pick one section, put the kettle on, and give it twenty minutes. Print this page if that helps (it prints cleanly). The goal isn't a perfect legal archive — it's a single place where your answers live, that your family knows about.

Two rules make it work:

• Write down where things are, not what they are. You don't need to copy out your bank balance — just record which bank, and roughly what's there. Never write full PINs or passwords on loose paper; note where the passwords are kept instead.
• Tell someone it exists. The best-organised folder in Australia is useless if nobody knows to look for it. When you're done, tell your partner, your executor or your adult kids where it lives.

1. The people to call first

In the first days after a death or medical emergency, your family will need to reach a handful of people quickly. Write down names and phone numbers for:

• Your executor — the person named in your Will to carry it out
• Your solicitor (if you have one) and where the Will is held
• Your accountant or tax agent
• Your financial adviser, if any
• Your GP and any specialists
• Your employer or business partner, if you're still working
• The two or three friends or relatives who should hear the news from a person, not a post

2. Your vital documents

For each of these, record whether it exists and exactly where the original is — a drawer, a safe, a solicitor's office, a bank's safe custody:

• Your Will — and the date it was last updated. (Around half of Australian adults don't have one. If that's you, this is the single most important item on this page.)
• Enduring Power of Attorney — who can make financial and legal decisions if you can't
• Advance Care Directive and/or enduring guardianship — your medical wishes (more in section 7)
• Birth certificate, and marriage or divorce certificates
• Citizenship papers or visa documents, if applicable
• Passport and driver's licence details
• Property titles or deeds, and any mortgage documents
• Vehicle registration papers
• Defence service records, if you or your spouse served — these matter for DVA entitlements

3. Money: accounts, super and insurance

You don't need balances — you need a map. For each item, note the institution and roughly what it is:

• Every bank account — everyday, savings, term deposits, joint accounts
• Your super fund(s) — including any old funds from past jobs you never rolled over
• Your super death benefit nomination — super does not automatically follow your Will. Check you've made a nomination, and note that many binding nominations lapse every three years unless renewed. If you haven't looked at yours since you last changed jobs, look.
• Shares and investments — broker, platform, or share registry details
• Any pension — Age Pension, DVA, or an account-based pension
• Life insurance — including cover held inside super, which is easy to forget
• Funeral insurance, funeral bonds or a prepaid plan, if you have one
• Home, contents, car and health insurance — insurer and policy numbers
• Debts — mortgage, loans, credit cards, anything owed to or by you

4. What you own

Beyond the big items in your Will, families most often argue — or agonise — over the small things. Record:

• Property — addresses, how each is owned (sole name, joint tenants, tenants in common)
• Vehicles, caravans, boats
• Valuables — jewellery, tools, collections, artwork — and any wishes about who should have what
• Anything stored elsewhere — a storage unit, a shed at a mate's place, a safe deposit box
• Anything owed to you — a personal loan to family, a bond, an unclaimed refund

5. Bills and subscriptions

Someone will need to keep the lights on, then close things down. List your regular payments so nothing lapses (or keeps charging a closed account):

• Utilities — electricity, gas, water, internet, mobile
• Council rates and strata fees
• Direct debits — and which card or account they come off
• Subscriptions and memberships — streaming, clubs, insurance paid monthly, the gym you keep meaning to cancel

6. Your digital life

This is the section previous generations never needed — and the one that now causes the most lockouts:

• Your main email account — it's the master key to almost everything else
• myGov — linked to the ATO, Medicare and Centrelink
• Where your passwords live — a password manager, a notebook, your head. Record where, not the passwords themselves
• Your phone and computer PINs — or where they're written down
• Photos — where the family photos actually are (cloud account, hard drive, albums)
• Social media accounts — and what you'd like done with them (Facebook and Apple both offer a "legacy contact" you can nominate in settings)
• Anything that earns or holds money online — PayPal, eBay, crypto, loyalty points

7. Health and care wishes

If you're ever unable to speak for yourself, these documents speak for you:

• An Advance Care Directive — your written medical wishes. The form and name vary by state and territory (Advance Health Directive in Queensland and WA, Advance Care Directive in SA, NSW, Victoria and elsewhere), so use your state's official form
• A medical decision-maker — the person legally appointed to decide for you (enduring guardian, medical treatment decision maker — again, the title varies by state)
• Organ donation — register your decision on the Australian Organ Donor Register, then tell your family: in practice they'll be asked to confirm it
• Current medications and conditions — a simple list saves paramedics and hospitals precious time
• What matters to you — in your own words, what "quality of life" means to you. It's the sentence families most wish they had

8. Your funeral and final wishes

Families in the first week of grief make expensive decisions fast, mostly guessing at "what they would have wanted". A few lines here spares them that:

• Burial or cremation — and any preference about where
• The tone — a traditional service, a graveside gathering, a party at the golf club, no fuss at all
• Any pre-paid arrangements — funeral plan, bond, or a plot already owned
• The details that make it yours — music, readings, who should speak, dress code if you care
• The practical wishes — flowers or donations, open or private, notices in the paper

9. Where things are

The humble section that saves the most swearing:

• Keys — house, car, shed, mailbox, and the spare set
• The safe — where it is and how to open it
• Important paperwork — the drawer, box or file where everything above actually lives
• This list itself — and who you've told about it

10. For your family: what to do, in order

Finally, consider leaving a one-page sequence for the first fortnight. In Australia, it broadly runs:

1. Don't rush. Almost nothing has to happen on day one except caring for people (and any pets).
2. Get a doctor to certify the death — the hospital, GP, or paramedics handle this.
3. Choose a funeral director — they'll also register the death with your state's registry, which produces the official death certificate.
4. Order several certified copies of the death certificate — banks, super funds and insurers each want to sight one.
5. Find the Will and contact the executor — the executor manages everything from here.
6. Notify the institutions — Services Australia (Centrelink/Medicare), banks, super, insurers, the ATO. Services Australia runs a bereavement service that can update several agencies in one go.
7. Leave the admin marathon for later — closing accounts, transferring utilities, probate if needed. It can all wait until the funeral is done.

Official resources worth knowing

• Advance Care Planning Australia — your state's advance care directive forms and how to complete them
• DonateLife — register as an organ donor (takes about a minute with your Medicare number)
• Services Australia — death and bereavement — what to do, payments and the notification service
• Moneysmart — wills and powers of attorney — the government's plain-English guide to getting the legal documents done

Common questions

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