Start-up taking hassle out of making and executing a will

A new start-up is aiming to make it easier and cheaper for people to write a will, with SafeWill raising $1m from private investors.

SafeWill chief executive and co-founder Adam Lubofksy with OurCrowd managing director Dan Bennett. Source: Supplied

A new start-up is aiming to make it easier and cheaper for people to write their wills, with SafeWill raising $1m from significant private investors including Wesfarmers director Mike Roche.

SafeWill chief executive and co-founder Adam Lubofsky said the company is tackling an industry worth more than $500m, with the digital platform letting people create an affordable and high-quality bespoke will at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.

Customers pay $190 up front then $15 a year for unlimited updates.

“Almost 60 per cent of Australian adults don’t have a valid will in place and that can be problematic for so many reasons,” Mr Lubofsky said. “Our vision is to fundamentally change the way Australians think about death, and making wills is an incredibly important step for all of us.”

SafeWill is going to market with a launch partner, the FiftyUp Club, an initiative from the founders of One Big Switch.

“They have 360,000 members over the age of 50, and are promoting SafeWill to their membership,” Mr Lubofsky said. “This represents a huge opportunity to capture a core target segment and establish ourselves in market.”

The executive added that he came up with the idea for SafeWill when a friend passed away unexpectedly without a will.

“It sparked a thought that why is this document so secretive and not spoken about,” he said.

SafeWill has landed $1m from investors including Wesfarmers director Mike Roche and OurCrowd managing director Dan Bennett who is also a director.

“We were almost surprised this isn’t already being done today,” Mr Bennett told The Australian. “We see this as a hugely exciting proposition, and a nice little aspect of it we’re keen on is that there is a huge opportunity to help and support charities.

“This technology can actually assist in facilitating gifts and charitable donations through the platform, and a number of charities are already partnering with us and are excited to be on board.

“This is really a modernisation of what is a pretty archaic process and document, and as technology investors, it’s a bit of a holy grail to find an industry that really hasn’t changed in 200 or 300 years.”

Mr Lubofsky added that the business should have a lot of room to grow outside of Australia.

“We’ve got an excellent group of strategic investors we’ve hand-picked to help us grow,” he said.

“We’ve got a number of Australia’s largest family offices involved and we’re working through a couple, including John Gowing of Gowing Group who owns a number of shopping centres and provides an interesting angle for us.”