Keeping important documents secure

Transcript of Interview: “Keeping important documents secure”

Mike Barnes:

I remember when I was a kid, around the house there were a couple of important drawers where the important stuff was. In my dad’s study, even in the kitchen, those two drawers—that’s where things were. And it can’t be that way anymore, really.

Kim Barnes:

That’s right, because we are in different places than our aging parents often, and so we need to be able to access those important documents. But maybe being able to find it in the drawer is not enough. So today we’re bringing in Martha Underwood of Prismm. Thanks so much for being with us. You know, Mike’s story about finding information in the drawers can be one option, but there are lots of better, more accessible, and cloud-based options these days too—and more secure.

Martha Underwood:

More and more secure, that’s right. I’m happy to be here.

Kim Barnes:

Well, tell us how your personal experience from not being able to access important documents when you needed them led to creating Prismm.

Martha Underwood:

Sure. I’m a Gen Xer and taking care of my parents like most Gen Xers are doing now. In 2017, Hurricane Wilma hit Miami, Florida. My parents’ house, where they had lived for 40 years, went unscathed, but the neighbor’s house had this huge tree fall on it. My dad, being the helpful neighbor he is, said he was going to go over and take his chainsaw, climb on the roof, and help cut the tree down. He fell off the roof and went unconscious. My mom was frantic and didn’t know what to do. She called me, and I started asking questions: Is he conscious? Is he unconscious? What’s going on? She was just devastated. Things progressed, and he kind of came to, but was in a lot of pain. They got him to the hospital, which was about two hours away. I got on the phone with the doctors, and they were asking me questions about his health. Does he have a Health Directive? Are there any restrictions? I knew my dad doesn’t take blood and has issues with anesthesia, but we didn’t know the extent of the injury at the time. I started thinking, what if he dies? Where’s the life insurance policy? Where’s the will? Does he have a Health Directive? My mom was no good; she was just distraught emotionally because we didn’t have that information.

Martha Underwood:

My background is in technology. I’ve been in tech for over 25 years, from Silicon Valley to supply chain, to IBM, to large banks. I said there is a way to solve this problem because my parents are in Miami, Florida, and I’m in Birmingham, Alabama. I wanted them to get the best care possible and have access to the documents so I knew what their wishes were and had the consent to speak to the doctors and handle any issues. I couldn’t do that from Birmingham because, like you said, I couldn’t go to the house to look in that important drawer—or even if they had one.

Kim Barnes:

Right, or if they had one.

Martha Underwood:

So, I built Prismm. In this world of technology, you have paper documents that our parents and grandparents are used to having, and then you have digital documents that we need to start adopting, but it’s everywhere. One document is paper, one document is digital. I didn’t want the headache of trying to comb through all of that. I created Prismm to centralize that information so I can get to it immediately, wherever I am in the world.

Mike Barnes:

To me, one of the hardest things is that there are so many documents in so many different forms and places, and there are so many people in the family. Sometimes you don’t know who’s going to need it and when.

Martha Underwood:

That’s correct. With Prismm, not only is it a digital vault, but we allow you to connect your account so you can have full visibility to their financial accounts. You can’t transact on it; it’s mainly just to know where it is. We let you categorize and catalog all the heirlooms, the properties, the real estate property that you have. With documents, you get all that. I have six siblings; there are seven of us. Like you said, who does what? We built a mechanism in Prismm where you can assign an Executor, a trusted person, and have two trusted people: an attorney, a CPA, and a financial advisor. Based on those roles, we give the subscriber the power to say, “I want you to see my financials,” or “I don’t want you to see my financials.” “I want you to see my documents,” or “I don’t want you to see my documents.” You can have read-only or administrative access. That was important to me because I’m not the only child that my parents call, and I need to administer. If they have a new account, a new document, or an updated document—my parents are 82 and 83—they have no idea how to use the internet like we do. They’re not digital natives, so I need to be able to go in, modify the document, upload it to the system, and then they have it.

Martha Underwood:

The beauty of Prismm is that if anything ever happened to your parents—an emergency or you needed access and weren’t given access at first, depending on your role—you can trigger the account. Everything goes into read-only state, and you have access to everything you need to manage their affairs.

Kim Barnes:

How do we have conversations with our parents to help them see how valuable this could be?

Martha Underwood:

I typically tell my customers and people I work with to talk about the burden they will leave behind. Most parents do not want to burden their children. When you start there and say, “Mom or Dad, here are all the things I have to deal with today, and if something were to happen to you, I’m the one that’s going to have to handle this. How can you help me? I need you to help me make it easier.” That’s when you start that conversation. It’s not a one-and-done; it’s a conversation you’ll have over and over again. I typically talk about having it during the holidays because more people are open. You have more siblings there who can share in that conversation as well. Make it not a one-and-done but a gradual thing you do month after month. You start loading those documents, get them comfortable with giving you some access. That’s what I found to be very successful with broaching this conversation.

Mike Barnes:

And then saying, “Here, let me show you where it all is, and you have access to it as well.” I can see some aging parents—I’m picturing my father as I’m saying this—thinking, “Well, I can just make copies and send them to all the kids. How about that? Or I can just email them a copy, and that takes care of everything.” But in both instances, one, you’ve got a physical copy and you may be somewhere else, and the email’s not as secure as you really want it to be.

Martha Underwood:

That is correct. Email is not secure. What I’ve been seeing is trends happening in technology with centralizing portals and security. Email is not secure; emails get hacked all the time. People’s emails get spoofed where they may act like they’re sending a document from Martha Underwood, and you inadvertently click on it, and now they have access to all your information. Doing it securely through a portal ensures that the people who are supposed to have access do have access, and the fidelity of that document is there. I know this is the document they meant to send me. There is no altering of this document on the platform.

Martha Underwood:

Because I was in banking and held a top-level position in a global bank, security is always top of mind, especially when you’re talking about money at a bank. When we approached the architecture of building Prismm, it was a zero-trust architecture where we don’t trust anyone. We built multi-factor authentication on the front end. You may see a 2FA where you get a text to log in again. We verify your email, verify by text, and encourage you to get an authenticator on your phone. You don’t have to, but that’s just how we are thinking about security to get access to it. We encrypt everything on the platform—nothing is decrypted. It’s all encrypted when you’re putting it in and storing it.

Kim Barnes:

I imagine that some people might think, “Well, I’m just going to put it up in some other digital cloud storage for these documents.” But one of the things within the platform is it prompts you to help you think about the things you should be uploading.

Martha Underwood:

True. One of the things I get all the time is, “Oh, I have it in Box or Google Drive.” Well, those platforms require you to give them access to everything. You don’t have control over it. If I put all of my parents’ financials and all of their accounts there, my little brother might be like, “Mom, let me hold twenty thousand dollars,” because they can see all of that stuff. They have access to the financial information, they can modify some of those documents. Even if you put up a PDF, they can download it, convert it, make modifications, and re-upload it. With Prismm, you don’t allow that. It’s secure, and you choose when you want them to see what. You can say, “I want you to see it now. I want you to see it when there’s an emergency and you absolutely need to have access to these documents and this information.” Or, “I don’t want you to see anything until after I transition. Once I transition, it doesn’t matter. You can see everything and handle the affairs and follow my directives accordingly.” That is the main difference. We give you the power to determine when you want them to see these documents or financial information, and those other platforms don’t do that.

Mike Barnes:

And not to promote us too much, but we have our Caregiver’s Key. We have a personal version and a digital version. If you have the digital version, you could easily upload it into something like Prismm, and then everyone can see it. So, if you’re on vacation in Los Angeles, New York, London, or wherever and you get that phone call, you can immediately look and see what that important information is and relay it to whomever it may be.

Martha Underwood:

That’s the beauty of it. The caregiver’s guide is amazing because it ties nicely into Prismm. When you log into the platform, it’s all grayed out from a document perspective. Once you say, “I’ve uploaded my will,” it gives you a visual cue that your will is there. Advanced directive, mortgage deed—all the things you would need to have access to. We guide you on what are the top ten documents you need, and we suggest other documents you may want to load. Having the caregiver’s key is critical because they’ve done all the work with you. You’ve given them the tools and guidance on what you should be thinking about, what you should be collecting from your parents, and you give it to them beautifully. They can store it there, and anywhere in the world, if you get that call, you can access it. You can’t predict what will happen or where you will be. To easily be able to get it on your phone, access it, and talk to that doctor, financial advisor, or whoever you need to talk to, having the information needed at the time is priceless. It gives you peace of mind and ensures that you, as the caregiver, will be able to take care of the person you’re caring for with the right information.

Kim Barnes:

I can definitely see how this is useful when your parent is alive and needs help, whether it’s going to the hospital and needing to jump in and get that information. What does Prismm do when somebody passes away?

Martha Underwood:

When someone passes away, you can hit the trigger button. If I am the executor or the trusted person, I can go in and hit that. We will ask for validating information, such as a death certificate, which is uploaded. We authenticate the authenticity of that document, and then everything goes into read-only state. You are then able to access that information if the subscriber gave you those rights.

Kim Barnes:

I would imagine that in that scenario, as devastating as that is for a family, this potentially makes some of that process a little easier.

Martha Underwood:

Much easier because you don’t have to go to their house and rummage through that closet with the important drawer or file cabinet to figure out what these documents mean. You already have it there. One thing people don’t understand or think through is the impact of grief. We’re grieving this loss and then have to do all this administrative work. It’s complex work, figuring out what the finances were, what their wishes were, what to do with the assets, who to contact—all those things. Prismm gives you that peace of mind because it allows you to grieve, knowing that all that information is there, and you can get to it when needed.

Mike Barnes:

What we always say is that the crisis is going to hit no matter what, but if you can lower that crisis level a little with peace of mind, it helps everyone so much.

Kim Barnes:

The planning and being prepared for sure.

Martha Underwood:

It does. That’s what prompted me to make Prismm. When my dad had that incident, it made me realize that I felt helpless because I was 700 miles away. I couldn’t get there by the time anything could have happened. It was critically important for me to quickly have access to that information. More and more people are starting to realize that.

Kim Barnes:

Many of us don’t live near our parents.

Mike Barnes:

Thank you so much, Martha. You’ve given a lot of people some peace of mind with all this information.

Martha Underwood:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Kim Barnes:

It is true because many times we don’t live close, and we want to help and jump in, but it’s hard if we can’t get to them.

Mike Barnes:

It’s not going to fix everything, but that peace of mind to know that crisis level can be brought down whenever that crisis hits. If you have any other topics you’d like us to discuss, please let us know at Parenting Aging Parents.

*This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or mistakes.