The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted many industries, but unfortunately, business is booming for one industry.
Death Services Amid the Pandemic
Death services such as creating last wills and testaments online, funerals, and order cremations are busy nowadays, especially in the middle of a pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
In particular, one company, Farewill, a startup company in the United Kingdom, has gained around $25 million in funding as it has recently announced.
According to TechCrunch, the company will use the funding to build a suite of death services, such as online wills and probate services, including sorting out taxes of a deceased person's property and death duties.
Based on the report, the company will be using the fund to grow its business and hopefully help people cope with their death or the death of their loved ones.
"We want to help by destigmatizing death," said Dan Garret, the CEO of Farewill, during an interview. "We all have to face death. It lives inside everyone. But for most of us, we are psychologically hardwired not to think about it, and as a process, people have been largely at the behest of an industry that doesn't think about its customers."
In a report by EU-Startups, Garret was inspired by his experiences at the Royal College of Art, so alongside co-founder Tom Rogers, he set out to change the way people view death and activities surrounding it, such as writing wills and probate services.
Plans of Expansion
As of the time being, the company is only providing its services in the U.K., but Garret is hoping to expand it.
Farewill has only been around for five years, but in that short amount of time, it has become the top will writer in the U.K., and that one out of every 10 will have been written with their help, bringing a whopping 10% in the market share.
Besides writing wills through the internet, Garret also said that the company's other death services have also seen quite some activity these days.
For one, cremation funerals are, sadly, popular in the midst of the pandemic despite being introduced by the company last December 2019.
Everything Is Done Online
According to the CEO, their cremation service is all done online. The costs are so much cheaper than the typical funeral, which people will need, given the state of employment during the pandemic.
Additionally, it has become a more popular option for families as they can choose how to memorialize their loved ones after the process, which bypasses the traditional funeral option.
Now, Farewill is the third to fourth biggest cremation in the country.
And it's no surprise that they got big, especially amid a pandemic, wherein our mortality has come in focus, and the outdated death services wherein a huge percentage of people were unable to do the traditional funeral tasks due to lockdown restrictions and social distancing.
Since they focus on providing their services online through technology, people are able to do what they need to easily.
Business is booming for Farewill, but in the industry involving death, it could be unfortunate.
