The first Women in Wills group meeting on 28th January was a welcome distraction from day-to-day life and duties.
The group joined to share their experiences of enquiries to date and their personal high and lows of the previous “coronacoaster” in the last 12 months.
We would like to thank our sponsors, Arken.legal, Executor Solutions, Honey Legal and Lawyer Checker for supporting the event which has been growing in numbers throughout lockdown and reached an amazing 600 members, with attendees from across the sector.
A panel discussion took place which brought about meaningful discussions with peers, both business and personal. The panellist speakers included head of customer engagement at Arken.legal, Pippa Shepherd, Kylie Simmonds-Cox, head of Sterling Trust Corporation, national team manager of the wills, trusts and estates team for Weightmans, Sarah Walker and head of trusts and estates administration department for Hugh James, Eleanor Evans.
There was great positivity and energy in the zoom meeting from all peers, the first question asked of the panellists was what levels of enquiries they were experiencing compared to this period last year.
Levels of enquiries were high for legal services, specifically, probate enquiries, Wills, contentious probate and court of protection. The top increases were contentious probate where claims are being brought against Wills which tends to happen when the economy crashes. And Sarah Walker reported there had been a huge increase in court of protection cases coming from local authorities who were struggling to cope with the increased demand and workload during the pandemic.
And there had been a huge increase in court of protection cases coming from local authorities.
There are also more deputyship applications and more people wanting probate dealt with by professionals. Those on the panel had found that people are wanting to get all their finances in order more and not putting it off by doing it altogether rather than a piece at a time.
Kylie Simmonds-Cox revealed that in the B2B market it was found that will-writing had gone quieter due to business partners cutting costs, but probate work had increased so teams have grown to cope with demand/workload.
Pippa Shepherd said that there was a sense of panic for a number of practices that hadn’t digitised their systems when the first lockdown happened. Many had to quickly get systems in place to deal with the workload remotely. But now, 12 months in, there is an increased emphasis on lead generation and business growth, such as capturing data digitally and looking at using online Will systems.
Karen Babington confirmed to the group that in the latest IRN consumer research report, it detailed that only 4% of people cited Covid as a reason to make Wills. Everyone was asked what their opinion on this was and, in their experience, do they think this number in reality is higher.
It was confirmed that a high proportion of clients had cited Covid as the motivation to make a Will. Interestingly, staff Wills had increased over the period during lockdowns. It was felt that the roll out of the vaccines would make a difference and there would be more face-to-face meetings going forward which could be a catalyst to trigger people to think about making a Will – but vaccines would not encourage them to make a Will.
It was also asked of the group whether they were seeing any trends at present worth sharing with everyone. Executor solutions, for example, are seeing a high demand for all of their services, in particular property maintenance and insurance. With probate seemingly taking longer than ever to be granted, properties are now standing emptier for longer and require more general upkeep.
It was echoed that probate would increase due to issues with probate registries and online probate service. There is data to show that there is an increase in the number of Wills, with Pippa confirming there has been an increase in online Wills, along with Lasting Power of Attorneys and General Power of Attorneys. There has been a reduction in Expression of Wishes documents.
It was stated that regarding the proportion of clients including gifts to charity in their Wills, there was more prominence on smaller charities rather than national. Pippa supported this statement, saying there seems to be a greater appetite to support local charities now.
Lastly, the group was asked what else practitioners across the sector could do to help each other and help ensure the Wills and or Probate process work efficiently.
The consensus of the group was to continually keep up with consumer trends and to put the clients’ needs first as the sector is not always customer centric and customer focused. Furthermore, to get the message across to the younger generation and tap into this market and get them as early as possible to make a Will – but in order to do this the processes need to be slicker and lots of touchpoints for engagement.
The meeting ended with Jade Gani, head of private client at Aston Bond telling everyone about her new project called “The Wishing Will Foundation” which has now soft-launched – whereby they have gone live to the members of the partnered hospices and charities they are working with. They are hoping to launch to the general public once they are up and running.
The next Women in Wills meeting will be held on 25th February 4.00pm – 5.30pm and the speaker is Shidul Hoque from the Office of the Public Guardian. Contact Karen.Babington@practicalvision.co.uk for more information.
