Most people don’t want to leave difficult decisions to their families after their deaths. According to one survey, 60% of people firmly believe this shouldn’t become a burden on their loved ones. However, the same survey determined that 56% of people haven’t officially shared their own final wishes.

There are a few reasons why this could be the case. Some people might not think they have enough property or assets to make this process worth the effort. They might also assume things will go smoothly no matter what they do or they may just simply want to avoid thinking about death. 

Regardless, taking time to consider final wishes is a key part of forming a legacy plan that sets their children and grandchildren up for financial success. It is a highly effective way for people to experience peace of mind, and it makes end-of-life care, estate distribution, and funeral preparation easier for their friends and family members to manage.

Fortunately, your banking customers won’t have to handle this task alone. When your bank has access to the digital platforms and services it needs to give its clients assistance in planning their final wishes, you can build stronger financial and emotional ties that strengthen your bank’s position as the cornerstone of the communities you serve.

Why Should Your Bank Help With Final Wish Planning?

Since the average person has little to no experience with final wish planning—and may be hesitant to begin—banks are uniquely positioned to help start the conversation. These processes often involve activities like setting up trusts and reserving assets for shared family goals, and financial institutions can help them make the most of their options and resources.

By going the extra mile and offering meaningful assistance to customers planning their final wishes, you can give them:

• A wide selection of services. If your bank can offer a complete lineup of life-planning services, your clients will be able to start and finish this process in one place.
• Official documents. Last wills need to be legally binding in order to function as intended. With your bank’s expertise and an easy-to-use platform, your customers will have no trouble exploring their options and creating a will that holds up from a legal standpoint.
• Emotional support. Mortality is a sensitive topic and many people have a hard time thinking or talking about their own deaths. By providing a helping hand while your customers plan their last wishes, you can make this process a bit easier for them. This is also a moment where family members can be brought into the planning process to support multigenerational success.

Of course, final wish planning also comes with considerable advantages for your bank. When an existing customer works with you to create their final wishes, you’ll have a natural opportunity to enhance your relationship and discuss other services your financial institution has that support wealth transfers and growth. And since most banks don’t provide in-depth life planning support, introducing these services is also an easy way to attract new clients while differentiating yourself from competitors.

Offer These Final Wish Planning Services

If you want to offer life-planning services at your financial institution, you should be ready to help customers with the following activities:

Create an Advanced Directive

Advanced directives are also called “living wills”—but unlike a person’s last will and testament, these documents don’t focus on what will happen to their assets after they die. Instead, they contain instructions for what their loved ones and medical professionals should do in the days leading up to and following their death.

A person’s advanced directive must include information on their decisions related to their:

• Health. Whether or not your client wants to receive hospice/palliative care, be resuscitated, or receive life-sustaining treatment, their advanced directive should clearly outline their thoughts on these subjects.
• Finances. By reading a person’s advanced directive, their loved ones will be able to find out who they want to pay their bills and attend to their estate. Your bank can help structure these funds as beneficially as possible. 
• Remains. Finally, an advanced directive can communicate whether a person wants to be buried or cremated, whether or not they wish to donate organs, and if they want to donate their body to science. These activities can be expensive, and setting aside funds in advance can help families manage the transition and avoid conflict. 

Establish a Last Will and Testament

Even if a person isn’t considerably wealthy, they should still prepare a last will and testament to assist in distributing the assets they do have. These documents outline a person’s:

• Estate (including assets and debts)
• Beneficiaries
• Plans for asset distribution
• Executors

Without a legally sound last will and testament, your customers won’t have the peace of mind that comes with knowing their assets will end up going where they should after they die. Still, a surprisingly small number of people have created one of these documents—in 2024, just 32% of people in the US have established a last will. Fortunately, you can encourage your customers to create a will and facilitate multigenerational wealth planning by making this process convenient and accessible.

Make Funeral Plans

Planning any major event can be difficult, but that’s especially true when it comes to funerals. In all too many cases, these events are planned by a person’s grieving loved ones, which could lead to unnecessary expenses or conflict about what the deceased wanted from their funeral.

Fortunately, people can keep these issues to a minimum by pre-planning their own funerals. While helping a client put together their funeral plans, you should talk to them about what type of ceremony they want—whether that’s a formal religious service, a celebration of their life, or something else entirely. Along with that, people can make decisions about their funeral:

• Venue
• Pallbearers
• Decorations
• Speakers
• Refreshments
• Music
• Videos and Photos
• Attendees

Since funerals typically cost thousands of dollars, your bank should also be there to help people determine how this event will be funded. With that in mind, you’ll want to assist customers in their efforts to: 

• • Establish a funding account for their funeral. A payable-on-death bank account can give a person’s family members access to funeral funding after they die. (Of course, you’ll be able to continue bolstering your connections with customers when they open one of these accounts at your bank.)
  • Purchase funeral insurance. As part of their life insurance package, your customers can buy a funeral insurance policy. With this form of coverage in place, they’ll get financial assistance with costs related to funeral planning, burial, and cremation.
  • Use their estates to fund this event. In addition to these funding strategies, people can opt to liquidate parts of their estate after they die. By doing so, they can create additional funds for their funerals.

• Preserve personal media. People today have thousands of individual memories in the form of cherished images and videos. Secure services like digital vaults can make it easy to organize and curate their content as well as share it with family members. 

Prepare an Ethical Will

In addition to following the steps listed above, your customers will want to address their friends and family members in the form of an ethical will. Ethical wills aren’t legally binding, and they don’t focus on a person’s last days or what will happen to their estate after their death. Instead, these documents are meant to express a person’s:

• Beliefs
• Confessions
• Personal messages
• Advice
• Stories
• Regrets
• Apologies

As is the case for their last will and advanced directive, your customers will have to store their ethical will in a safe place until it’s needed. With the right digital partner, your bank can help them store these documents in their digital vault along with other important personal content. 

Talk to Their Loved Ones

Finally, your customers shouldn’t keep the process of planning their final wishes to themselves; instead, they should talk to their loved ones about this. During their discussion, people can clearly and directly express their last wishes while addressing any fears and concerns held by the people they care about.

If your bank has played a substantial role in a person’s final wish planning process, this stage could come with some unexpected benefits for your financial institution. For example, it could give you an opportunity to connect with a customer’s loved ones—including members of younger generations who could become new clients in the future. 

How Paige Helps Banks Offer Final Wish Planning Services

Final wish planning may not be the easiest process in the world, but there’s no getting around the fact that this is important for your customer to do. By sitting down and thinking about what they want from their end-of-life care, funeral, and estate, people can make things much easier for their loved ones during a difficult time. And if your bank is able to participate in this process, you’ll have no trouble building lifelong emotional connections with customers.

That being said, your financial institution may not already offer services like will creation, document storage, and memory/message sharing. If that’s the case, Paige can help—our comprehensive life planning platform makes it easy for banks to start providing these services to new and existing customers.

Better yet, the benefits of partnering with Paige go beyond reinforcing your emotional ties with clients. Banks that work with us see significant increases in non-interest income along with a 300%+ average ROI increase in the months after they start offering Paige-powered services. To take your bank’s final wish planning capabilities to the next level, schedule a demo of Paige’s platform today!