Password manager estate planning addresses a problem the tool itself creates. Consolidating hundreds of credentials into one encrypted vault is excellent security practice, and it concentrates your entire digital life behind a single master password that, by design, the provider cannot recover for you.
Zero-knowledge architecture is what makes these products trustworthy and also what makes them opaque after death. The vendor genuinely cannot read your vault, which means they cannot open it for your executor either, no matter what documentation is produced. The protection is symmetrical: it works against attackers and against your family equally.
Several managers now offer emergency access — a nominated contact who can request entry, with a waiting period during which you can decline. Where it exists it is the cleanest available mechanism, because it is built into the product rather than bolted on. It has to be configured in advance, and a surprising number of people who use a manager have never enabled it.
Where the feature is unavailable, the alternative is ensuring the master credential and its second factor are recoverable through some other deliberate arrangement. The recurring failure is subtler than a forgotten password: the vault opens, but the accounts inside are protected by two-factor codes tied to a phone nobody can unlock, so the credentials are visible and still unusable.