Inheritance related solutions are often considered a part of estate planning in the West. According to TechCrunch, the estate planning market in the US is valued at $180 billion in 2022. Investments in estate planning tech start-ups exceed $200 million. This includes companies such as Everplans, Wealth, Lantern, Cake, Trust and Will, FareWill, etc. Worldwide solutions in this space are termed ‘DeathTech’. While there are no official estimates, the estate planning industry would be worth about $5 billion in India.

In India, the traditional players in the space of inheritance are the lawyers. One reaches out to them when one wants a will or trust or any other legal documentation such as probate or succession certificate. Then there are family offices, which are wealth management advisory firms that serve ultra-high net worth investors and provide a complete financial advice and solutions such as legal, insurance, investment, estate, business, tax, lifestyle and even philanthropy related advice to clients. Increasingly, wealth managers or chartered financial planners (CFP) are also trying to bundle estate planning offerings to their customers as a rich value add for their wealth lifecycle.

“The traditional competitor here is the little black book kept in the family safe. In today’s day and age many believe Google Docs to be the answer. But we offer a completely secure and confidential way of organising the relevant data on the cloud along with the option of keeping the same in your own Digilocker (GoI provided cloud data storage available to all citizens),” adds Seth who in 2021 launched Digilocker to store inheritance and succession planning-related information safely and perpetually on Digilocker. Every user of EasyInherit can upload their EasyPortfolio on to Digilocker at the click of a button.  This information can thereafter be shared with any nominee of the user directly from Digilocker using its built-in consent framework. “Additionally, the unique partnership allows EasyInherit to implement a consent-based access to a user’s financial and other asset data to auto-populate the EasyPortfolio. This prevents leakage of information – one of the key reasons why the next of kin usually fails to locate critical data.” 

Handholding the process

For claims, the local agent or tout is the closest that there is no competition in this space. There are a few firms offering you services which will help doing all the run-around for a hefty fee. And there are a few more who deal in specific niche areas such as physical to demat transfer of shares. “This is where we are unique in terms of combining the digital ecosystem and helping ease the user process, journey and flow during the transmission/claims process across all asset groups”.

“I heard about EasyInherit through common acquaintances. And I wanted the services of a new age firm that would use the power of technology to help my parent draft and register a will in Mumbai. The team arranged for appropriate legal consults, set up appointments with the registrar and handheld the process to its completion. All this in the middle of a raging Covid pandemic. EasyInherit made the entire process a smooth sail,” says Milind Agarwal, a businessman.

“India makes a difficult case for inheritance planning if you have special needs children,” says Dr Amit Biswas. As a parent of a special needs child, he along with a few others 

have set up an organisation that caters to the life needs of such children beyond the lifetime of their parents. “However, each parent needed something special for their child and legal advice was difficult, at times insensitive and mostly expensive. EasyInherit handled our cases with the sensitivity it needed and in a transparent way. It helped each parent create custom trust deeds per their need and yet stay within the common objectives of the broader organisation,” adds Biswas.

“Losing a set of parents in quick succession is traumatic enough. But when a global pandemic prevents you from travelling and being with family in such circumstances, it makes matters worse,” says Rahul Singh who along with his brother lives in the US while their sister lived in India. Their parents owned properties and assets in different parts of India and did not leave behind clear succession instructions. “EasyInherit understood the situation and simplified the process into achievable blocks. They coordinated between the family members across time zones and facilitated conversation with government agencies. Using technology and its network of professionals, the company settled their estate within six months with no need of any travel,” adds Rahul.

“I needed to travel abroad for life critical treatment and wanted to ensure my estate was well settled in any contingency,” discloses Devika Bahudhanam, who reached out to EI with the shortest possible timeline and the highest criticality. “Their legal team immediately understood the situation and decided to work out a few options that could be quickly executed. Working overtime, the legal team handled the case with sensitivity while staying aware that time was critical.”