what kind of money do they ask for ?
I’m constantly amazed at how vulnerable my clients will allow themselves to be to my potential demise. If I didn’t proactively send documentation and source updates on my own initiative, they would be completely SOL. If I were them and had invested as much in me and the projects as they have, I’d insist on the passwords to my computers.
just google “source code escrow” and numerous options will come up.
Nope - when I die the company’s IP will be buried with me 
[quote=421559:@James Meyer]My last software company was required by a few customers to place source code with a 3rd party escrow agent. Under certain conditions (like we go out of business) the code would then be released to the customer. There was a lot of legalize and depending on the service and the agent can be quite expensive and cumbersome. If our customer wanted it we would require that they pay for it… many would then change their mind.
We generally considered it a farce… something CEOs do to cover their ■■■■ with their Board… Realistically unless they were able to hire one of our employees that was familiar with the code it would have taken months of work before it was useful to them.[/quote]
Not a farce and those organizations smart enough to ask for escrow most often have the resources to deal with the situation in which the event occurred.
We’ve done this with BRU source since 1988 in the event of a company demise. We also have a rule in the corporation bylaws that places the BRU source code into the public domain in the event we decide to call it quits and not sell the IP to another organization.