FAQ

In brief, the protocol has these steps:

1. You create a vault, upload your documents, then select your Keyholders and Guardians.
2. In an emergency, your Keyholders can request access to the Vault.
3. The Guardians receive a notification of this request and decide to approve or reject it.
4. If the request is approved, Keyholders can access and download the documents stored in your Vault.

For more details, see our How It Works page.

Any personal or sensitive information that you want to be available in emergency situations. The service is flexible to your needs. Here are a few ways that people like you use Fidelius:

1. Common account logins. Use for Fidelius to store account information for common services in the event of a medical emergency. You may need others to have access to these services in the event you are incapacitated. For example, access utilities, banking sites, mortage or apartment payments, and anything else that may need prompt attention.
2. Wills and estate planning documents. Fidelius can safeguard your estate planning documents until the time is right.
3. Personal notes or instructions. Similar to the above, you may wish to leave letters or instructions to individuals that are available under certain circumstances.

These are only a few examples of what you can store in the service: Fidelius is flexible to your needs.

You’ll want to be prepared with the following information:

1. A name, purpose, and description for the Vault.
2. The email addresses of the people who will act as your Keyholders and Guardians.
3. The documents you want to secure in the Vault.

While creating a Vault, you can skip any of these steps and return later if you need more time to decide.

While Guardians can neither view nor download your documents, they do control access to that information. So, in emergency situations, Guardians act as your proxy for determining if access should or should not be granted to your Vaults.

Choose only those people you thoroughly trust to act as Guardians for your vaults, such as a close friend, an attorney, trusted business associate, or your financial advisor.

Fidelius recommends at least two Guardians on each Vault for redundancy (what if one person can’t be reached?), but you can choose as many as you feel you need.

Keyholders are the people that you want to have the right information at the right time. So these are the people who can request access to your vault in emergency situations. They can be family members, life partners, business associates, your attorney, and others who you would want to have access.

Each of your Vaults can have as many Keyholders as you deem necessary; however, only one Keyholder needs to request access to the Vault in emergency situations.

When you add people as Guardians or Keyholders, Fidelius will automatically send them an email with the details. Once they create a free account, your vault will be available immediately on their Dashboard. Fidelius will also notify them of any changes to your vault, including a request for access.

Yes, you are able to change Guardians and Keyholders at any time. To do so, click the ‘Edit Vault’ button and add or remove members as necessary.

We pride ourselves on clear pricing with no hidden fees. You can choose a subscription plan with Monthly or Annual payments, or opt for the one-time Lifetime fee. With each option you get access to all features of Fidelius, current and upcoming. See our Pricing page for more details.

Your Vaults, and all of the information stored, will remain active for 60 days. After that period, the Vault will be archived; all of your uploaded documents will be deleted and the Vault becomes inactive, but you will keep information such as the names of Keyholders/Guardians and the activity log. You can also manually archive your Vaults at any time if you prefer.

No, Fidelius offers a free, 21-day trial that does not require a credit card. You can create as many Vaults as you’d like during the trial and access all of Fidelius’ features. Additionally, if you’re just acting as a Keyholder or Guardian, you never need to enter credit information.