TIAA Safe Estate is an online service that provides personalized guidance and education to help you organize life’s most important documents, like your will, power of attorney, and life insurance information. You can also keep things you need close at hand, like employment information, insurance policies, and tax records.
In addition to storing and organizing copies of important files, you can add key contacts and determine who will have access to your most important documents.
Education Center
Get answers to your TIAA Safe Estate questions, more information about our topics and access to helpful resources.
Resource library
Learn more about what it means to be organized with articles, videos, factsheets and more from TIAA professionals
- Four estate planning essentials
- Leaving a legacy
- Living in the sandwich generation
- Estate planning for singles
- Planning for incapacity
- Love, marriage and money
- Healthcare considerations
- Managing life, health & long-term care insurance
- Know the rules for charitable deductions
- Do I need to think about taxes differently in retirement?
- Spring into tax season prepared
- Tips to help reduce your income taxes
- Five investment mistakes even smart people make
- TIAA trusts
- Housing options
- Your financial goal planner
- Survive or thrive in retirement? Income planning may be the key
- How to cover your essential living expenses in retirement
- After a loved one passes away
- Dividing up your IRAs in a divorce
Using TIAA safe estate
TIAA Safe Estate in four, simple steps
TIAA Safe Estate is designed to help you and your family prepare for the future. Organize and safeguard your most important information so it’s there when you need it.
Choose a topic
We’ve compiled topics ranging from your health and legacy to family and finances. Each topic takes just minutes to complete.
Answer a few questions
Tell us what documents you have and where you keep them. You can also upload any important files associated with your topics.
Add contacts
Create a contact list: the friends, family, colleagues and professionals you count on and who could offer help or advice when needed.
Invite Delegates
Choose someone you trust with your information, then decide if they can see everything or just the specific contacts and topics you choose.
Need more help? Check out our FAQs
Dig deeper
Dig a little deeper into TIAA Safe Estate topics
Select a topic from one of our four categories to learn more.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Browse our topics for answers to common questions.
About TIAA Safe Estate
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Yes. We are always looking for ways to improve TIAA Safe Estate. This could require you to re-enter some information, and/or accept our updated Terms and Conditions.
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There is no fee for using TIAA Safe Estate.
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TIAA Safe Estate is available only to TIAA clients and their delegates.
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You can read our terms of use here: TIAA Safe Estate Terms and Conditions.
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If you have questions, contact your TIAA advisor (if you have one) or email TIAASafeEstate@tiaa.org.
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Please put your account closure request in writing and send it to:
TIAASafeEstate@tiaa.org
Or
Attn: TIAA Safe Estate
P.O. Box 1259
Charlotte, NC 28201
Accessing TIAA Safe Estate
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Log in to your TIAA account. From Your profile (the circle displaying your initials at the top of the page), a link to TIAA Safe Estate is located in More profile options.
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Windows: Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.0, Mozilla Firefox 45 and Google Chrome 49.
Mac OS X 10.4: Safari 9, Mozilla Firefox 45.
Note: Web TV's customized browser is not currently compatible when logged in to TIAA.org .
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Yes. TIAA Safe Estate supports mobile devices running iOS 3.2, Android 2.2, and BlackBerry 6 or later.
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No. An internet connection is required to use TIAA Safe Estate.
Privacy and security
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The following is a list of just some of the steps we take to protect your data. For more information, please visit our Security Center.
- We enforce password guidelines and block your account after repeated failed login attempts
- We use risk-based and opt-in multi-factor authentication to enhance customer security during login
- We encrypt all communications between us to protect your data
- We have operational procedures to keep the site secure that include regular audits and security patches
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You have the option to share as much or as little information as you’d like with your trusted delegates. We restrict all others from accessing any content you enter in TIAA Safe Estate, including uploaded files. Your account will not be accessed, used or shared by TIAA except at your direction or as required or permitted by law. To learn how we protect your information, see our privacy policy .
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If you have any concerns about the security of your account, call us at 800-842-2252.
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Yes. Please see the Uploading files section for more information.
TIAA Safe Estate definitions
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The dashboard is your home base for TIAA Safe Estate.
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TIAA Safe Estate topics are broken into four categories: Finances, Health, Legacy and Life & Family. They represent the most important documents, policies, instructions and other information in your life.
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There are four topics we consider essential for being prepared: last will and testament, general power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney and tax records. If you indicate that you don’t have supporting documentation for these, we’ll list them as “not started.” This is our way of reminding you how important these topics are for being prepared. When you’ve made progress on these, you can come back and complete the topics.
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The On Deck section is our way to help you prioritize your topics. We will always display what we consider to be your three most important topics. As you complete a topic, we’ll replace it with another one. It’s a great place to reference if you’re not sure which topics are the most important.
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The Topic Library is a snapshot of your topic progress. For a complete list of your topic status, select the View All Topics button.
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The My Delegates section shows the people you’ve chosen to share your TIAA Safe Estate information with. The table displays their delegate status and access level. Select a delegate name to view all of their access details.If you’re a delegate for another TIAA Safe Estate user, you’ll be able to access their TIAA Safe Estate information from the My Delegates section. Select a user name to open your delegate dashboard.
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A delegate can be a spouse, child (18 years or older), a best friend or anyone you trust with your TIAA Safe Estate information. Once you’ve identified a trusted contact, we’ll email instructions on how to become a TIAA Safe Estate delegate. You decide how much information to share with your delegate, and you can change or revoke their access any time. You can add a new delegate from the Take Action dropdown or the My Delegates section of your dashboard.
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A survivor designee is a delegate who will have full access to everything you’ve saved in TIAA Safe Estate after your death. Even if you limit a delegate’s access to your contacts and topics while you’re living, you can ensure all of your information is shared with them after your death by making them a survivor designee. You elect survivor designees when you determine delegate access, and you can change a delegate’s survivor designee status any time.
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The My Files section shows all of the files you’ve uploaded as you’ve completed your topics. From here you can view, rename or delete files you’ve uploaded. To add a new file, you must go to your Topic Library and choose a topic. See Uploading files for more information.
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The My Contacts section shows all of the contacts you’ve added to TIAA Safe Estate. Contacts include trusted family members, friends, colleagues or professionals (for example, your attorney, insurance agent or physician). To add a new contact, simply select Add Contact.
Completing topics
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There are four topics we consider essential for being prepared: last will and testament, general power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney and tax records. If you indicate that you don’t have supporting documentation for these, we’ll list them as “not started.” This is our way of reminding you how important these topics are for being prepared. When you’ve made progress on these, you can come back and complete the topics.
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We recommend completing all topics. If a topic doesn’t apply to you, you can indicate that by answering No to the first question. However, if you choose No for an essential topic, we will list it as “not started” as a reminder of how important the topic is for being prepared.
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If you started a topic but didn’t indicate where you keep your document(s) or upload any related files, we will assume there is more left for you to do and will consider the topic unfinished.
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You’re not required to answer every question. However, to complete a topic you must indicate where you keep your document(s) or upload a related file.
Uploading files
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No. Files must be saved to your personal computer before uploading to TIAA Safe Estate.
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- PDF (Adobe portable document format)
- TIFF/TIF (Tagged Image File Format)
- JPEG/JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
- PCX (PC Paintbrush bitmap format)
- PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
- BMP (Windows bitmap)
- TXT (Text File)
- Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX)
- Microsoft Excel (XLS, XLSX, CSV)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX)
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You can upload up to six files at one time. Individual files can’t exceed 7 MB, and the total upload can’t exceed 42 MB.
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There is no storage limit. You can save as many files as you like.
Get in touch
Need help? Contact us.
Give us a call
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