Perspectives podcast: Wills 101 with Willful CEO Erin Bury

Stephen Meurice: Do you have a will?

Erin Bury: I think the main barriers tend to be cost, convenience and a general dislike of thinking about our own mortality. 

SM: That’s Erin Bury, Co-founder and CEO of Willful, a Canadian, do-it-yourself online will platform.  

Erin is here this episode to help us understand this seemingly scary legal document. She’ll cover everything from what exactly a will is, to when you should get one, some key definitions and much more. 

EB: I mean, listen, we don't talk about wills or estate planning at the dinner table when we were growing up. We don't talk about it in school or learn about it. And so, there's a ton of misinformation out there. 

SM: Lucky for us, Erin knows this topic front and back. She even survived and successfully pitched Willful in the “Dragons Den” a few years ago. So, she's the perfect person to give us a primer — whether she likes it or not.

EM: Yes unfortunately, I've become the death girl in my circle of friends and online communities. 

SM: [laughs]

EB: So, when anyone has a question about it, I'm the person they go to. I don't know if that's the personal brand I saw for myself 20 years ago, but here we are.

SM: I’m Stephen Meurice and this is Perspectives.

Erin, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate you taking the time.

EM: Thanks for having me, Stephen. Excited to be here.

SM: So, we're going to delve into sort of a 101 of wills and will planning. But before we get started, I can't help but ask what was it like being on Dragons Den?

EB: You know, it was so true to what you see on TV. I hate when I read about reality shows that are completely fake and your soul is a bit crushed. Dragons Den is very true to reality. And I have to say my husband, Kevin, and I practiced so many times in advance that we actually weren't as nervous as you might think walking into the den. But yeah, one of the highlights of my career for sure. And we did do the deal, which is always the big question that I got. ‘Did you actually take the money?’ And the answer is, ‘Yeah, we did.’

SM: Wow. Were they, like, friendly to you? Did they all want to be part of your business?

EB: Well, it's interesting. Our average customer is a Canadian with a very simple financial situation. So, I was a little concerned that the Dragons having very complex, high net worth situations, they wouldn't see the value in the product. But they were all actually very, very kind about the product, very complimentary. Even Manjit [Minhas], who scared me, I'll be honest, a little bit going in. And so, the big thing you don't see on TV is how long the pitch is. You're in there for probably 50 minutes and they edit it down to maybe a seven or eight minute segment. So yeah, they asked us tons of questions, but they were overall super respectful, kind, supportive, and even their criticisms were those that we had heard before that were very valid. So yeah, I walked away from it feeling really positive about it, and if I was a U.S. citizen, I'd be applying for Shark Tank. But I guess I've reached the pinnacle of my reality TV pitching career.

SM: Okay, we got that out of the way. Now I'm going to start with what probably seems, maybe it's a stupid question or it's too easy for you now that you've been in this business for a little while, what is a will?

EB: It's not a stupid question at all, especially because we know I mean, listen, we don't talk about wills or estate planning at the dinner table when we were growing up. We don't talk about it in school or learn about it. And so, there's a ton of misinformation out there. And, you know, I'm not in an estate lawyer. We work with estate lawyers across Canada, but I'm just an average consumer who got a quote for thousands of dollars and thought there has to be a better way. So, I love starting with the high level, the basics. So, a will is a legal document that outlines who wraps up your estate when you pass away, who receives your assets and who takes care of any minor children or pets. So, it's really this high level document that's appointing people in key roles. And there's this big misconception, I think, that it's very detailed and in-depth, and you must have your tax returns handy, and all of your financial statements and your mother's maiden name and you know your password to your vault. No, you don't need any of those things. You really just need a few high-level decisions.

SM: And is that sort of the main misconception about wills? There must be lots of them, but is the main one or maybe the main one that keeps people from getting to it and doing it, that it's going to be a super complicated process?

EB:  I think the main barriers tend to be cost, convenience and just general a dislike of thinking about our own mortality. So of course that can be expensive to get done. The convenience factor is not just, you know, I don't necessarily want to go to a physical office and make an appointment with someone, but also the convenience of having conversations with the key people you need to. A spouse, the person you might want to take care of your children if it comes to that. And then just, you know, it's uncomfortable to think about. I think about this stuff every day. I'm actually grateful that I do, because it makes me much more intentional about how I spend my time. But a lot of people will do absolutely anything to not have to think about death. And it really is a cultural thing. In other cultures, like Japan, it's very, very common and so part of our mission is much like we're doing right now. How do we have more conversations around death? How do we actually make end of life conversations as ubiquitous, as common, as easy as conversations about retirement planning?

SM: Right.

EB: But you asked earlier about kind of the myths and misconceptions. And I think one of the most common ones that we hear is, ‘I don't need a well, until I'm old. I don't need a will until I have millions of dollars of assets.’ And the thing I always try to get across to folks is a will is not just about who gets your money. It's about appointing guardians. It's about appointing an executor to wrap things up. And even if you do only have $500 in a chequing account, don't you want that to go to the person of your choosing instead of a government formula in your province dictating who gets that very hard earned $500?

SM: Okay, we'll get into a bunch of the detail around what people should be thinking about, but I understand and that part of the reason why you got into this business was an experience that you and your husband had around the potential sudden need for a well. Are you able to talk about that.

EB: For sure, yeah. I mean, I think a lot of great businesses come out of personal experiences and coming across this problem and thinking, you know, I can build a better mousetrap. And that's certainly kind of what happened in our situation. So, my husband, Kevin's uncle, passed away quite suddenly, and he actually did have a will, but he had never discussed anything outside of that with his family or his wife of 30 plus years. So, we were struggling with questions like, ‘Does he want to be buried or cremated? Where is the life insurance paperwork stored?’ And, you know, calling his coworkers and saying, ‘Hey, did he ever mention anything to you?’ And debating with each other about what he would have wanted. And that really sparked for us an understanding of what you leave your family with. If you don't have those conversations, which is unanswered questions and stress at a time when we really should have been focused on grieving. So of course it inspired us to think about our own plans. We didn't have a will for many of the reasons I cited earlier. We didn't learn about it growing up. It wasn't something that was top of our minds. But we were in our early thirties. We were homeowners and so we talked to friends and they all said, ‘Oh yeah, I went to a lawyer. It was $1,500, it was $1,200.’ And we just looked at each other and said, ‘We have a pretty simple situation. I don't want to pay that. Do you want to pay that? Do you want to take time off work to go into a lawyer's office in the middle of the afternoon?’ And we saw that in the US and in the UK there were some really cool TurboTax style solutions for getting your will done and said this could be something cool that we can build right here at home. So that was really the impetus for it, is how do we actually remove those barriers of cost and convenience? How do we use technology to bring this pretty archaic and traditional process online? And ultimately, how do we improve access to justice so that any Canadian, regardless of their budget, regardless of their situation, can find education and resources to help them create an estate plan?

SM: Yeah, the education part of it is huge, I would say, and having gone through the process of being an executor on somebody's will after they died, it's a difficult and somewhat complicated process even when you have a will. Never mind if you don't have one. So, what you're trying to do is help people at least avoid that even more difficult process if there's no will involved.

EB: Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head. The will is really the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other things you can do that are just nice to dos for your family that remove the burden after you're gone. From getting life insurance to recording an asset and liability list which we have on Willful to storing your passwords, maybe in a password manager so that they're accessible. But that's overwhelming, right? If I said to you, ‘Hey, Stephen, you have to take 12 hours and document every piece of your life.’ You're probably not going to prioritize that. But if I said to you, ‘Hey, it takes 15 minutes to get a will, it's going to reduce so much burden. It's going to make sure the courts don't have to make decisions. It's going to make sure your money ends up with the right people.’ If I can get you to do that, then hopefully I can take you on this journey after that to collect some of those other key components, because it's not just the will and it's also not one and done as we'll talk about today.

SM: Yeah, for sure. When would you say people should start thinking about it?

EB: Well, I mean, the idealist in me says everybody should turn 18 or whatever the age of majority is in their province. Instead of cracking open that celebratory beverage, they should be getting a will.

SM: [laughs]

EB: Realistically, was I thinking about that in first year university? No, I definitely was not. So, what we see and what we saw from the survey that we did with Scotiabank is the main triggers are life changes. Number one being having a child. And as a mom of two now I can absolutely say getting or updating your will when you have a child, it becomes so important. It's absolutely the number one reason that we see folks come to Willful. The number two reason is becoming a homeowner. So, buying a home or a piece of property or even another large asset like maybe a car. And the number three that we actually see is the loss of a loved one. And so really being triggered by either, as you mentioned, being the executor or having to deal with someone's estate or just attending a celebration of life. And it kind of triggering, ‘Hey, I should be thinking about this. I should be putting some plans in place.’ Most of our customers tend to fall into two age categories. The first would be the 30 to 45. So, the millennials and bordering on Gen-Xers, and those are the folks that are going through those big life changes for the first time. And then the second category would be the kind of 50 plus folks who are approaching retirement. You know, getting a bit older is making them think about it. And they are also updating out-of-date wills because let's be honest, there's probably some folks listening that have a will like my parents did, that was sitting in a drawer since 1982 and probably doesn't reflect their current life choices.

SM: Right. And can you just explain what an estate is? I guess that's everything a person owns, I was going to say when they die, but before they die as well. But when they die is what it refers to, I suppose.

EB: Exactly. And it's really important to also understand what is governed by the will and what isn't. So, for example, so I have a chequing account with my husband, a joint account, and I pass away. Well, that's not actually going to go through the will. That's just going to automatically transfer to him. Same as if I have any RRSPs or life insurance policies that have beneficiary’s name directly on them. Those are going to go directly to those people. They're not going to fall into the estate that's governed by the will. But yes, again, going back to the misconceptions about wills, I do think that people have this misconception that you have to detail everything you own, every bank account, every dollar, every valuable item. And your will is really covering this umbrella estate. It's saying when I pass away, regardless of what I own, hopefully it's worth $20 million, you know, whatever I own at that time, here's how I want it to be split up. Not here is an itemized list of absolutely everything, and here's what I want done with it.

SM: Okay, so tell me about Willful and what problem were you trying to solve when you started this company? And what does Willful do that didn't exist or that wasn't an alternative for people before?

EB: For sure. So, I think that the problem that we're trying to solve is that a lot of Canadians know that they need a will conceptually and then they either get a quote from a lawyer or they hear a story like I did from a friend about how much it was, and they don't have the money for that. And so, the alternative for them is doing nothing. And our goal is that actually the alternative is you turn to a tool like Willful. Where it's affordable, it's accessible maybe at some point you grow out of it and you have the complexity that would require a professional. And I think that's an important distinction to make, is that our mission is that every Canadian has a legal will. We are not trying to replace estate lawyers. There's a really important place for estate lawyers. We're not giving you legal advice at Willful. You're essentially using our templates. We're customizing them for you and we're giving you education along the way. But you're not sitting with a lawyer and getting one-on-one info. And there are also a lot of situations or complexities that our platform just isn't well-suited for. So, we really see ourselves as a complement to estate lawyers and a way to fill that gap for folks who just wouldn't be able to use the services of an estate lawyer.

SM: Right. What makes a will, a legal will?

EB: What makes a will legal in Canada is not who creates it. There's no requirement that you have to work with a lawyer, or in certain provinces a notary, in order to get your will done. In fact, in most provinces you can handwrite a will on a piece of paper by the time you're done listening to this podcast and it's completely legally valid. What makes a will legal is again, how it's executed. So, if you handwrite it, you don't need any witnesses, you just write it on a piece of paper. If you're creating a will with a lawyer or using a tool like Willful, it has to be printed on paper, signed by you with a pen in the presence of two witnesses who also sign the document. By going through that process of signing and witnessing it, it becomes a legally valid document. I should also note that British Columbia became the first province to allow completely digital wills. So you can actually electronically sign a will in British Columbia, store it digitally elsewhere in Canada. Unfortunately, it's still very, very paper based, although we hope that that changes soon. So at Willful, we actually worked with estate lawyers in each province to generate all of our legal documents because there are provincial nuances and legislation in each province that governs wills and estates. And we have all of those local lawyers on standby with us to do regular document audits and improvements and to make sure that we have that local expertise in each of the ten provinces that we operate in.

SM: And at what point does somebody maybe need to get something more complicated, need to have a lawyer look at their estate and so on? Like is there sort of a threshold like if somebody has got an estate worth a certain amount of money or what qualifies as simple or simple enough to be able to do it using your tool?

EB: Great question. It's not necessarily a dollar amount. It's more about the types of complexity. And I'll give you a few examples of that. And I should caveat with, if you just want legal advice from a lawyer, that's reason enough that you may not be able to use Willful and you want to go pay an hourly rate to sit with a lawyer and get advice. We don't give legal advice at Willful and we just give legal information, though we have a ton of educational resources. Some other situations that we can't accommodate would be things like creating a secondary will for a business or other assets for tax purposes. So, you're separating them out. Blended families are sometimes things that are beyond our scope. So, for example, setting up a spousal trust so that you protect your children from your new second husband giving everything to their kids and not yours when they pass away. So certain sections of complex trusts, children with disabilities, there is something called a Henson Trust that you need to put in a will to protect their government benefits. And that's not something that we do. Secondary wills in other markets that might separate assets in, you know, if I have a home in Florida, for example. So those are some of the types of things. We actually have a warning page on Willful that kind of says, ‘Hey, this is the nature of Willful. Here's exactly what you're getting from our platform. And here is some of the situations that we cannot cater to, and that may lead you to want to seek the advice of a professional.’ And we worked on that page with the Law Society of Ontario to make sure that we are capturing a lot of those complexities. So again, we're trying at every turn to make sure that people understand the nature of what we do and the fact that if they have questions. If they want that custom advice, then they should be turning to a lawyer for that.

SM: Okay. And would that include things like, well, maybe I'll get you to explain what a power of attorney is. Is that something that falls under the mandate of Willful or is that sort of a separate thing?

EB: Yep. So right now, we have a few different plans on Willful. Our baseline is $99 and that just comes with the will. So if you just need a will 99 bucks and you're done. Then our higher priced plan, which is $189, has the will and both power of attorney documents and an asset and liability list. This is something that helps you record, ‘Hey, I have bank accounts with Scotia. I have, you know, investments here.’ And that's just helpful for your executor when you pass away. It's not a mandatory thing or a legal document. But going back to your question about powers of attorney, a will comes into effect when you die. So, when I die, the will says, ‘Here's who's going to take care of things and wrap up my life. Here's who's going to get my stuff, here's who's going to take care of children or pets.’ A power of attorney is more like an insurance policy. You buy car insurance hoping that you never get in a car accident. But if you do, the car insurance is there to protect you. That's a power of attorney. It says, ‘Erin, I hope that you never are incapacitated or ill or in a coma or anything like that. But if you are, here's who can make medical and financial decisions for you.’ So, there's two different documents, one that covers your financial decisions, one that covers medical and they have different names in each provinces. In some places they’re called health care directives, but generally they're called powers of attorney. And you also can have one just because you don't want to do something yourself. For example, my dad goes to Florida for six months and says, ‘You know what? I'm going to give Erin power of attorney over my finances so she can go into the bank and do this thing so I don't have to fly back from Florida.’ Right? So, it doesn't just have to be because of illness or incapacitation, but in the context of Willful, it's really about, ‘Okay, as I was not able to make my own decisions, who is someone that could stand in for me?’ And these are, I would say, equally as important here if not more important than the will, because we've heard from health care providers over and over again, you really want to have these in place before something happens so that you can equip, especially medical professionals with the info they need. 

SM: Right. One more role that I'll ask you to explain and maybe how it fits with Willful and that's the executor. I mentioned having had to do that myself. But if you can explain what an executor does and who should you be thinking about when you're choosing your executor?

EB: So, an executor is the person who essentially takes the wishes in your will and puts them into action. They're responsible for a variety of things, including taking care of your funeral and burial wishes, liaising with all of your beneficiaries about the progress of the estate. Applying for probate, which is just the court process of recognizing the will. They're going to deal with all of the little and big things, shutting down your Netflix account, making sure that your houseplants are dealt with and your locks are changed on your house. Selling any property like homes or cars, disposing of personal effects, like maybe your clothes donating them or selling them or giving them to family members. And they're going to move all of your assets into a central estate bank account. And once the process of filing taxes, paying off your debts, because unfortunately those don't disappear after you pass away, after all of this administrative work is done, they're then going to pay the money to the beneficiaries and kind of wrap things up. It's important to note that your executor can hire help. That sounds daunting. So, if you've been appointed executor, you're probably thinking, ‘Darn, I've bitten off a lot more than I can chew.’ You as executor, and maybe you did Stephen, you can hire an accountant or a lawyer or a professional executor to help you with that process. And when it comes to who to consider, I would say most people appoint their spouse in this role as they have one. If you don't, it tends to be a sibling, a parent depending on their age, a good friend. And often people do appoint professional executors like a trust company, a bank, a professional executor, firm, etc. We don't support the professional executors right now on Willful, but it's definitely something you can do if you visit a professional. And what to consider? Well, I mean, first trust, right? You want to trust that this person is going to do the right thing and they're not going to disappear with all of the assets to Ibiza never to be heard from again. You want to think about the time commitment. This is a very time consuming role, as I'm sure you can attest to. And so, you know, if your sister has five children and her life is a bit chaotic, maybe she's not the best person. And then you also just want to think about their capacity to manage this, right? I am the most type-a organized, productive person. Managing spreadsheets gives me great joy. I probably will make a great executor. If you have that really disorganized sibling who always seemed to have their head wasn't attached to their body, it would be rolling around on the floor. They may not be the best person to put in this role. So those are a few of the things to consider. The question to you is why did you get appointed executor? Was it trust? Was it time? Was it organization? Or just because you were the only warm body who would do it?

SM: [laughs] Some combination of all of those things, I'd say. 

EB: Exactly. 

SM: Can I ask you, you mentioned a couple of times the relationship with Scotiabank. Can you tell us what that's about?

EB: Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, listen, we've been around for about six years. I think we've built a really great brand. We've had some great opportunities to be on programs like Dragons Den and had some great coverage in the media, but we absolutely do not have the reach of a company like Scotiabank. So, it's so thrilling to be able to team up with an organization that not only has such an audience of people that we can reach with our message and our education, but also just has a similar priority on financial wellness and having a holistic financial plan. You know, when we talk about financial planning, I don't think the first thing that comes to someone's mind is estate planning. But if we work so hard to grow our wealth in our lifetime, we should also have a plan for how that's going to transfer efficiently. And so that's really, I think, the ethos of this partnership is how do we empower Scotiabank clients, myself included, to fill this gap in their financial plan in a really affordable, easy and accessible way that fits with the ease of use and the accessibility of all of the other Scotiabank products.

SM: Okay. So before we go, what’s big message that you would want to get across to people around this kind of planning?

EB: I think it would be twofold. The first is this is not something that you're doing for you. You know, when you buy a life insurance policy, you by definition never benefit from it. It's something that is paid out when you pass away. And the same is true of getting a will or any sort of end-of-life planning. It's not about you. It's about reducing the burden and the stress on the people that you leave behind. So, this is really a gift that you can give to your family first and foremost. And the second thing is, for anyone listening who's in a situation like me, you know, I have aging parents. Both mine and my husband's parents are divorced and remarried. So, we have eight aging parents, and we also have two young kids. So, I care about estate planning because I don't want to burden my own children and I want to make sure things are set up for them. But I also care about it because I'm probably going to be the executor for many estates. And even if I'm not officially the executor, I'm going to be there. I'm going to be helping with the funeral and burial planning. I'm going to be trying to figure out where Mom's paperwork is stored. And so having these conversations both empowers me with the legacy and the wishes that my parents have, what type of celebration of life, those types of things, but also just with the brass tacks, where’s stuff stored. Do you have a will? These are important conversations for them to have, but more importantly, they're going to reduce my own burden and stress in the future. So, and that's to me, the two reasons: reduce the burden on your family, reduce the burden on yourself.

SM: And now you have the expertise, you're kind of the natural pick to do that job at the time comes, right? Yes.

EM: Unfortunately, I’ve become the death girl in my circle of friends and online communities. So, when anyone has a question about it, I'm the person they go to. I don't know if that's the personal brand I saw for myself 20 years ago, but here we are, Stephen.

SM: Erin, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you taking the time.

EB: Thanks so much for having me.

SM: I have been speaking with Erin Bury, she’s the co-founder and CEO of Willful.