How does DWB work? Five Simple Steps…

Don’t Wear Black (‘DWB’) has been built with ease of use in mind.  Just follow the five simple steps below to setup a live document of your wishes for people you trust to access after you die.

1. Register

Simply register on the Dont Wear Black (DWB) website here.

We’ll send you a confirmation email and with it you can log-in and start compiling your Wishes Profile.

This service and access to your Profile for your loved ones is entirely FREE OF CHARGE.

Here are our standard Terms and Conditions.  There is nothing scary in there, but reading the T&Cs (and FAQs) is recommended to all our members.

2. Complete Your Wishes Profile

Once logged in you’ll be presented with a number of different tabs with questions on each, these relate to:

• Funeral arrangements & service
• Important information for others after you die, such as preferred next home for your pets, location of investments, insurance policies, accounts, pensions etc.
• Personal messages to loved ones
• Organ Donor registration – entirely optional – links to the official NHS Organ Donor Register
• General information that is needed to configure your profile

You can answer as many or as few of these questions as you wish.  You can re-visit to complete and/or amend your Wishes Profile as many times as necessary; or as your preferences change over time. Nothing can be seen on the website until you are ready and switch it on (see Step 5).

Access to your information is password protected.  We will never ask you to store PINs, security numbers, bank account numbers, on-line banking passwords or other highly sensitive or secretive information within DWB. Your information will be stored securely. In fact, read in isolation the information would be mostly meaningless to anyone but the intended recipient.

3. Add Nominees

During the process of completing your Wishes Profile, you will be asked to provide the names of one or more ‘nominees’ – being (typically) family members, trusted friends or maybe business contacts.

Your nominee(s) will eventually have access to your Wishes Profile and should therefore be people you entrust to carry out your wishes once you pass away.  It’s a good idea to talk to them beforehand to ensure they are happy to become your nominee, understand the process and are capable of accessing the site.  You can add or remove nominees at any time, although you should always inform a nominee if you remove them.

4. Decide When Your Profile can be Accessed

There are three options for providing access to your Wishes Profile.  Deciding which one to choose is up to you and really depends on whether you want the information to be accessible by your nominee(s) before or after you die.

• Option (A) – Immediately accessible to nominees:

With this option your Wishes Profile is private to all but your assigned nominees.

Once you have completed your Wishes Profile, an email will be sent to each of your nominees. Within the email they will be given a password and instructions of what they would be required to do on the occasion of your death. However, this will give them immediate access to view your Wishes Profile.  After you have passed-away, your nominee(s) can access the information and act upon it accordingly.

• Option (B) – Minimum of two nominee passwords:

With this option your Wishes Profile remains private until you have passed away.

You can choose to provide access only if a nominee has his/her password and that of another nominee, providing a level of security and privacy, but ease of access when required.

As mentioned above, when you establish your DWB Wishes Profile and set-up your nominees, those nominees will be advised and provided with a password via an email. If you have selected this access option, that email will also include the contact email address of the other nominees (likely to be other family members, friends or professional advisers).

When the sad, but inevitable comes, the nominees can contact each other, exchange passwords and access your Wishes Profile, as you intended, using both passwords.

• Option (C) – Nominee(s) requires solicitor password:

With this option your Wishes Profile also remains private until you have passed away.

You choose to enter the details of your family solicitor when completing your Wishes Profile. The solicitor will be sent an email advising them that you are a DWB member. They will also be given their own password (different to your password used for amending your records).  At the same time, your nominee(s) will be advised that a DWB registration has been made and they will be provided with the contact details of your chosen solicitor. As before, the nominee(s) will be given their own password and clear instructions.

At the time of your death, your nominee(s) will simply need to provide the family solicitor with a copy of your death certificate or other acceptable proof of your passing. The solicitor can then release their own password to the nominee(s).  The nominee(s) can then access your Wishes Profile using both passwords.

5.  Make your Wishes Profile Live

Finally, once you are happy with the content of your Wishes Profile and the nominee(s) that you have provided, you can switch it on (make it live and accessible on our secure website) – which we call switching it to ‘Online’.  At this point emails will be sent to each of your nominee(s) and solicitor if you’ve provided one.  Your information is now accessible to your nominee(s) in the event of your death.  You can still amend your Wishes Profile or remove access to it from our website (switching it to ‘Offline’) at any time, but you should always inform your nominee(s) if you do remove it. You can switch it Online or Offline as often as you require.