Original language of the article: German

Mr. Gehrig, why don't you tell us about your career and how it came about that you founded DeinAdieu.ch?

After my studies in Business Innovations, I worked for IT and consulting companies and ended up at a startup consulting company in 2013. For several years, I was able to accompany many founders and got to see hundreds of digital platforms. This awakened in me the desire to also set up something of my own. So I started with DeinAdieu.ch in 2015 and only after a few detours I came across estate fundraising in 2016. Since then, we have expanded DeinAdieu.ch and now work with about 200 non-profit organizations.

On DeinAdieu.ch you can, among other things, have your will generated. How many people have found out about inheritance, living wills, etc. on your site in 2022 and how many wills have been generated?

In 2022, we cracked the million mark for the first time. Favored by the new inheritance law, the last few months have seen well over 200 thousand visitors per month on our portal. Within the last 30 days alone, around 850 will templates were created via our portal. This means that we are likely to process around 10 thousand wills this year.

Do you have a guideline as to how many people in Switzerland include a charitable organization in their will? Is there a discernible trend?

Through our platform, the share of organizations considered in the total number of will templates developed from 11% in 2018/2019 to about 14% in the meantime. These are excellent values from our point of view. So the trend is slightly upward across our platform. However, a greater lever lies in increasing the rate of wills: currently, it is assumed that only something like 25% of the population ever draws up a will. Increasing this rate by 5% is many times easier than increasing the 14% by a few more percent.

Non-profit organizations are customers of DeinAdieu.ch. What kind of services do you offer?

In order to increase the aforementioned testamentary rate, all organizations with more than a few hundred donors need tools to efficiently support members, clients, donors, etc. in their estate planning. Because without measures, 75% of the target group will not make a will. Our two core services are:

(a) Online wills tool for free generation of legally valid will templates.
b) Free probate advice in cooperation with our inheritance law specialists.

In addition, there are many other small tools. All of these tools are included on the organization's website, on the one hand, for the sole consideration of the source organization. On the other hand, the tools are also used by thousands of visitors to the DeinAdieu.ch platform. Through this "User Journey" we suggest the consideration of an organization to the potential testators.

The new inheritance law came into force on January 1. What impact does this have on possible bequests to charitable organizations?

In purely arithmetical terms, the abolished or reduced compulsory portions for parents/children increase the accumulated free quota by several billion. A testator may therefore be able to freely dispose of a larger part of the inheritance and bequeath more to an organization.
However, it is much more important that the people themselves get to grips with the issue. From our point of view, this goal has already been achieved: numerous media outlets have been picking up on the topic for months and we have also received a high number of hits.

Since DeinAdieu.ch deals with content that is subject to precise legal regulations, the question arises as to what extent lawyers are involved in the operation of DeinAdieu.ch?

Lawyers are routinely involved in many processes at DeinAdieu.ch: Lawyers write our advice articles and play a supporting role in the further development of the web application as well as in data protection issues. In addition, we have a large network of partner lawyers - some of these inheritance law specialists are available for free initial consultations. With others, we organize several inheritance law events each year.

Mr. Gehrig, to conclude with a personal question: Thematically, DeinAdieu.ch is about the last will, about passing away. To what extent has the constant confrontation with this topic changed you as a person?

I have been very aware of the finiteness of life since a young age and therefore I try to savor it well. This awareness has certainly become even more pronounced in the last 8 years. Especially the encounters with specialists, with interview partners or ethical questions have been very exciting. Overall, however, in my day-to-day work I am primarily concerned with my team, with customer care and with the application of various technologies. The focus is therefore on our product, key figures, online marketing, processes, automation and everything that goes into running a company. At the moment, I am particularly busy with our market entry in Germany, which is currently underway. So I deal surprisingly little with the demise itself.

Posted in Interview