I said hello to a woman coming into church this morning whose husband died just two weeks ago. He was 60 and dropped over dead while walking the dog. The woman asked me if I knew anything about MSN Money. She didn't have to say another word because I knew exactly what she was going to ask. She told me that her husband took care of the checking account and she could no longer pay the bills or see account activity because she didn't have his password to get into MSN Money.
OF COURSE she couldn't. Poor thing. There is nothing she can do but close the account, transfer to a new account and start fresh, dealing with whatever complications that might result. This is also the conclusion of an MSN Money article titled "Don't take your passwords to the grave." Her husband was 60 years old and didn't give his wife a few passwords to keep the finances! He was a wonderful man who I liked a lot, but that was an outrageously stupid thing to do.
I can be critical of the guy because a few weeks ago I sat down with my wife and showed her how to find any account name or password she would ever need. We also walked through the process of paying bills in Quicken, with my wife sitting at the keyboard. I didn't throw a lot at her, only two or three passwords or files she could easily remember to keep things going.
If you haven't passed along your passwords to your wife, you should consider it.