Harry Joffe, Head of Legal Services, & Gareth Friedlander, Deputy CEO; at Discovery Life

Key data and insights:

• Clients with Vitality Money have a 37% higher Will completion and storage rate.
• 6 in 10 clients without Vitality Money don’t return their Will for secure storage, leaving the original document at risk of loss, damage, or being difficult to find when needed.
• Discovery’s quality checks catch signing errors in 18% of Wills (1 in 5) returned for storage, allowing these errors to be corrected before the Will is securely stored.
• 95% of testators choose to store their Will safely with Discovery.
• 1 in 3 clients with Vitality Money who drafted their Will are 35 years or younger.
• 50% of clients have estate values lower than R2,5 million.

New insights from Discovery Wills and Trust Services, which provides Will and estate planning services, show that even among people who have taken the first step of drafting a Will, finalising the process remains a challenge.

Drafting a Will through Discovery Wills and Trust Services earns clients 10,000 Vitality Money points when their correctly signed Will is returned for secure storage.

Of those not on the Vitality Money programme, 6 in 10 did not return a signed Will for secure storage, highlighting an industry challenge of getting people to complete the process. Without secure storage, the original is at risk of being lost, damaged, or difficult to find when needed.

“Clients on the Vitality Money programme had a 37% higher completion and storage rate than those who did not. It suggests that giving people an immediate reason to act can help them follow through on something they already know is important,” says Gareth Friedlander, Deputy CEO of Discovery Life.

Discovery’s quality checks found signing errors in 18% of Wills (1 in 5) returned for storage, which could have left people unknowingly without a valid Will had these errors not been identified and corrected.

“Every year during Wills Week, we tell people that they need a Will. But our data suggests awareness is only part of the challenge,” says Harry Joffe, Head of Legal Services at Discovery Life and Discovery Wills and Trust Services.

“People know that a Will is important; they’ve started one. The challenge is making sure that when they do complete the process, they end up with a Will that is correctly signed in accordance with the Wills Act and safely stored.”

The process of drafting a Will, signing it, and returning it for storage can take as little as 24 hours, but somewhere along the way, people put off completing something they have already decided is important.

This is why Discovery looked at ways to make it easier for people to follow through, including creating a more immediate reason to act. One way is by connecting its estate planning, banking and rewards capabilities.

Since introducing the behavioural incentives and revamping the Will journey with additional acquisition channels, Discovery has seen a 360% year-on-year growth in clients completing and storing their Wills.

Wills aren’t just for the wealthy – or older

Behavioural elements also play out in bringing estate planning conversations to the forefront for younger clients.

“1 in 3 clients who have completed the Will drafting and storage process are younger than 35, a 57% higher representation than those not on the Vitality Money programme.

“This is a good example of what Discovery’s Super Bank strategy can enable:bringing banking, insurance and rewards together to help clients take important financial actions,” adds Friedlander.

The data also challenges assumptions about who is thinking about estate planning:

• Men and women are equally likely to have a Will drafted and stored
• 59% of clients have children and, among those parents, 79% have at least one child aged 18 or younger
• 71% of clients have estates of R5 million or less
• 50% of clients have estate values lower than R2,5 million. Clients with Vitality Money have a 43% higher weighting toward estate values of less than R2.5 million.

“You don’t need a Will because you’re wealthy. You need one because you have people and assets that need to be looked after,” says Joffe. “For parents, particularly those with young children, a Will is also about who will care for your children and how they will be provided for if you are no longer there.”

“The conversation needs to extend beyond simply encouraging more people to get a Will,” says Joffe. “We need to help people through the entire journey – from making the decision, to drafting and correctly signing the document, and ultimately making sure the original is safely stored and can be found when it is needed.”

For Friedlander, the findings show that awareness needs to be matched with practicality. “Making the process simpler, providing guidance at the right points, using incentives, working with advisers, can all help people follow through.”

ENDS