When you’re your own next of kin

You’ve made every decision about your life on purpose. The record of what exists has to come from you too.

The NextOfKin App

Five simple figures standing side by side in a row on a pale blue-grey ground, all the same size, with faint concentric circles behind them.

Living on your own terms means the answers live with you. It also means nobody else has been quietly learning them alongside you.

In a household, some of this gets absorbed by proximity — someone else half-knows which bank, which doctor, which folder. On your own, it doesn’t.

What has no default

A few things genuinely need a name attached, and they are the ones people are surprised by:

Who makes a medical decision if you can’t make it yourself
Who can handle a bill or a bank in the meantime
Who takes your pet, and what you’d want for them
Who you’d actually want asked — which is often not who a form would assume

That last one matters most. The people closest to you are the people you chose, and a system that guesses will guess by relationship rather than by closeness.

What belongs with an attorney

A will, a power of attorney, a healthcare agent. Those are legal instruments and they belong in legal documents. An hour with someone qualified covers it.

What’s worth adding

The rest. Where things are, which account does what, who to call, and what you’d want done. Not the passwords — the map.

One small thing

Who would you actually want called?

Not who a form would pick. The person who would know what to do, and who you’d be glad was asked.

Naming them changes nothing on its own — they’re asked whether they’re willing, and that is the whole ask.

When you open the app next, we’ll ask one more question. That’s it.

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