Digital life and legacy services company has raised $7.5 million to date

December 29, 2021/Business, Preneed, Products/

What happens to our online accounts, photos, documents and more when we die?

According to this press release, “Our digital lives – and deaths – are increasingly complex. Recent surveys show that some 65% of U.S. adults do not remember their passwords and another shows that 95% have no idea what happens to their digital stuff when they die.”

The press release goes on to say, “GoodTrust offers a comprehensive suite of estate-planning tools including the ability to create a free will, funeral directive, durable financial power of attorney with more directives coming in early 2022. Broadly, GoodTrust’s solutions include a Digital Vault, Free Will and Directives, Digital Executor service, and meaningful ways to share Life Stories.”

GoodTrust, whose website you can access here, has been founded by Google executive Rikard Steiber to organize a digital life and legacy platform that helps families organize their digital lives today and prepare their online assets for the day they pass away.

Again, according to the press release, GoodTrust has raised $ 7.5 million from various sources.

Funeral Director Daily take: Not everything that GoodTrust does is death care related. In organizing a client’s world of relationships, the company plans to help clients with their intertwined digital and physical lives as it pertains to insurance, estate planning, funeral planning, and legacy — which is where their “Life Stories” come into play.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

GoodTrust will provide “Digital Vaults” where one can store documents, social media, photos and device passcodes. In addition, once someone has passed away GoodTrust can help manage these accounts through there Digital Executor services.

Certainly GoodTrust is not the only provider that can do some of these things. We also know of a another company, Executor’s Choice, that does some of these same or close to the same things. Executor’s Choice and its product FinalDocx can help in making notifications of death to many parties through only one data entry point. Executor’s Choice, from our vantage point, is generally more funeral home directed, but it appears that both of these companies have very good features that should be able to enhance what a funeral home does.

And, I think that is the nuts and bolts of this article. That being that there are creative, technology companies being built in the death care space that can be great partners with funeral and cremation establishments when used correctly. There is no doubt that the “Death Tech” movement is moving forward to enhance what funeral homes do and, from my point of view, funeral homes need to look at the products they can use from them to make their funeral homes more appealing, user friendly, and service oriented to a consumer. The added value a funeral brand can give to a consumer by offering this type of technological service may well become the reason that funeral establishment is chosen in the first place as we move into the future.

My advice to funeral home owners and managers is to keep your eyes open for new technology based products that may tip the scales into a family choosing your services over a competitor. Death care consumers are becoming more savvy everyday and the products that you can provide these consumers, in your overall service packages or your preneed option selections, may well make a difference.

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