Beneficiary & Legacy

How to claim a vault after an owner has died

Last reviewed: July 6, 2026

If a NestVault member has died and you believe you’re their beneficiary, here is the whole process, including the part that depends on their estate rather than on us.

Filing the claim

Go to mynestvault.com/claim. You’ll provide your name, email, and relationship to the owner, the owner’s email address, and two documents: a death certificate and your government-issued ID (PDF, JPG, or PNG, up to 10MB each).

Review

Every claim is reviewed by a person — there is no automated approval. We cross-reference the vault owner’s designated beneficiary list and respond to your email within 48 hours. If approved, you receive a setup link.

What you’ll need that we cannot give you

During setup you must enter the owner’s vault password — it should be in their estate documents or a sealed letter with their attorney. It is never sent to NestVault; all decryption happens in your browser. We cannot decrypt the vault for you. An approved claim plus no password still means a locked vault — if you can’t find it, search the estate documents before starting setup. The setup process currently requires the vault password itself.

After setup

You’ll create your own vault password, the vault is re-encrypted under your key (this runs in your browser and takes 15–30 seconds), and you’ll receive your own recovery code — save it immediately; it’s shown once. From then on, the vault is yours.

Still stuck? The contact page answers the five most common questions and has our email — a real person reads every message.