The following is an extract from a blog I'm planning to post soon on my business web site:

If you've been going “paperless” for statements and bills, you should authorize your own impersonation:

If something happened to you it might be necessary for the family or business associates to obtain password access to personal email to get into payment accounts, bank accounts, brokerage and other personal or joint accounts. Your corporate email can be reset by an administrator so others can access it, however, if you’re the President/CEO it wouldn’t be likely to happen unless you’ve authorized others to do so in-advance, or have an empowered Administrative Assistant.

Some important things might lapse if bills and notices aren’t addressed timely... professional and business memberships, insurance matters, registrations, renewals and other important payment notices.

Personal accounts are usually not as easy to take over as a an account administered by your business (where the administrator or manager knows you). On a personal level, should access provisions be incorporated into a living will or power of attorney? The reality is: Most online services don’t have policies to allow a surrogate to access secure individual accounts (even if you approach them with legal authority). It might take months (along with time and expense) to prove that the authority to take over someone else’s account is legitimate, if it can be done at all.

What this means, is that from a practical standpoint there must be a way to grant emergency access to your accounts by trusted people, and empower them to impersonate you. An advance directive in writing, authorizing them to do so under emergency circumstance, may help them to make the timely decision to do so in your absence.

A sound password strategy requires that you use a different (complex) password for each service you subscribe to, whether business or personal. That means it’s even more difficult for someone else to access all the information, or even know about the existence of all the accounts.

The most effective answer to this problem is to use a secure password manager, and multiple trusted people (e.g. spouse of business partner) should have the master password (or alternatively, access to shared folders with a subset of important passwords). Some “enterprise” password manager applications allow you to set up user groups and shared folders, so select passwords can be securely shared between specific users who belong to a group. This also gives you the ability to revoke access to password records, and manage account passwords when employees are disabled or leave the company. Some password manager apps can also allow users to set up a personal account and associate it to a business account, then separate it again when you change employment.

Disclaimer: I'm giving practical advice not legal advice.