Pandemic influenced Canadians to prepare estate planning documents
LegalWills.ca survey found that COVID-19 influenced over half of survey participants to write or update their Will.
OTTAWA, ON, March 23, 2021 /CNW/ - As Canadian online estate planning pioneer LegalWills.ca saw their sales spike by 300% in March of 2020, the company's co-founders were inspired to dig a little deeper into how the pandemic influenced Canadians'' decisions to tackle this important task.
A survey initiated by LegalWills.ca in February of 2021 found that COVID-19 influenced over half (53%) of survey participants to write or update their Will within the past 12 months. Women appeared to be more influenced than men, with 64% being female. Furthermore, COVID-19 clearly played a significant part in stopping the procrastination associated with writing a Will, as 66% of survey participants said that writing a Will was something they had been meaning to do for a while.
With online Will writing services becoming more mainstream, 44% of those who wrote a Will did not even consider going to a lawyer before using LegalWills.ca. Although writing a Will was a primary focus, 42% also took advantage of the opportunity to create a Financial Power of Attorney, Living Will (Power of Attorney for Health Care), and to document their funeral wishes. 13% even decided to write final messages to be delivered to their loved ones after they have passed away.
"We were all thrown for a loop when COVID-19 hit and I think the takeaway for a lot of Canadians was the need to be better prepared. April of 2020 was actually our busiest month in the company's twenty year history. Estate planning shouldn't be something that is done out of fear; it's simply responsible planning." said Tim Hewson, co-founder and CEO of LegalWills.ca
Other key findings of the survey included:
- 28% of survey participants said that they wrote a Will because the pandemic made them realize that they needed to be better prepared. Out of those, 64% were over the age of 50.
- Older adults were more influenced by COVID-19 to write a Will, as 79% of those who did so were over the age of 50.
- 21% of those who wrote a Will included a charitable bequest in their Will, and 11% included a trust for the care of their pet(s).
Learn more about the survey's findings here.
About LegalWills
LegalWills.ca is the first and leading online estate planning platform in Canada, having created over half a million estate planning documents in the past 20 years. In 2020 alone, over 100,000 estate planning documents were created by customers in all 13 provinces and territories across Canada. Since the start of the pandemic, LegalWills.ca has given away over 7,000 estate planning documents free of charge to front line health care and education workers across Canada.
For more information please visit: www.legalwills.ca
SOURCE LegalWills
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