News24 | It takes a free smoothie to get a will signed

Some people create a will but never get around to signing it, making the document legally problematic.

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Would a free gym membership or a smoothie actually motivate you to sit down and write a will? It sounds like an odd pairing, but, according to Discovery, it is surprisingly effective.

Every year during National Wills Week, financial advisors talk endlessly about legacy planning. What we know is that everyone wants to leave an inheritance, just as everyone wants a comfortable retirement, yet few ever achieve it. According to insights from Discovery Wills and Trust Services, only about 30% ever get around to making a solid estate plan.

So why the massive disconnect?

Behavioural economists call it present bias. Humans are wired to value immediate gratification over long-term benefits. A will is the ultimate future product – you spend time and money setting it up today, but you’ll never actually be around to see the payoff. And it also reminds us of our own mortality.

According to Discovery Wills and Trust Services, a few common hurdles keep people stuck in neutral.

• “I’m not rich enough”: About 35% of people skip making a will simply because they think they don’t own enough assets to matter. They often forget that if they have young kids, a will is essential for establishing a trust and naming guardians.
• “Life gets in the way”: Roughly 43% say they just haven’t found the time.
• “It feels too complicated”: The jargon around capital gains tax, estate duty and legal structures overwhelms people before they even start.
• “I don’t like thinking about death”: Most people only consider a will after a major trigger like a health scare, a death in the family, or getting married.

Gamifying estate planning

To break through that psychological barrier, Discovery linked drafting a will to immediate rewards in its Vitality Money programme. Drafting a legal document earns you 10 000 points, which translates directly into gym perks, flight discounts, and coffee.

By trading a future obligation for an immediate perk, the results shifted dramatically over a single year. Since introducing the behavioural incentives and revamping the will journey with additional acquisition channels, Discovery has seen a 360% year-on-year growth in clients completing and storing their wills.

Clients on the Vitality Money programme had a 37% higher completion and storage rate than those who did not.

Gamification had a significant impact on younger clients, with a 57% increase in young adults getting their paperwork sorted – making up one in three applicants. Discovery also saw a 43% increase in applications from people whose estates are valued under R2.5 million – challenging the idea that they did not have enough money to justify a will.

The importance of having a will checked

While writing your own will is valid, as long as it is signed in ink, insights from Discovery Wills and Trust Services found that in many cases, a will was invalid.

Nearly 60% of people draft a will but never send the signed physical copy back for safekeeping. Of the wills returned, 18% are signed incorrectly, rendering them legally invalid.

Many parents will establish a testamentary trust to protect minor heirs, but they forget to provide for the high administrative fees, which can erode small trusts if they aren’t structured correctly from the start.

Another challenge is that people do not update their wills when life changes – forgetting to update a will after having another child or getting divorced can lead to messy legal battles later.

A will is probably one of the most important documents we will ever have, especially as parents, but apparently, it takes free smoothie to get us to do something about it.