Innovative Employee Benefit: How can you help your employees navigate the loss of a loved one?
Published September 27, 2024
Written by Mariano Gutierrez
Losing a loved one is an inevitable part of life. Many benefits help employees navigate this difficult time: life insurance, grief counseling, bereavement leave and wellness apps are readily available and you probably offer them to your employees today.
Proactive planning tools like will preparation and estate planning are also benefits that can help employees prepare ahead of a loss. And yet, 58% of employees report that grief from the death of a loved one affected their work performance months after the event. A piece of the puzzle is missing - how can employers help employees navigate the loss of a loved one? How can you stay ahead of the curve?
Problem Statement
Current State
The aftermath of losing a loved one is often accompanied by overwhelming stress and logistical challenges. One of the most difficult tasks for family members is locating, organizing, and managing the deceased’s estate information. This typically involves digging through filing
cabinets, briefcases, or unorganized paperwork. In many cases, it can take weeks, months, or even years to locate key documents like wills, insurance policies, and asset records.
This process becomes a huge distraction for employees, who must balance work responsibilities with the emotional and mental strain of grieving. As stated above, 58% of employees report that losing a loved one affected their work long after the event, underscoring the significant toll it takes on your employee’s productivity and well-being.
Losing someone and dealing with probate for months is unfortunately not rare. Nearly everyone has experienced or heard of a story like this. One of our close friends at LifeCloud, for example, spent months sorting through her late father’s estate, piecing together fragmented information. This personal burden not only disrupted her life, but also significantly affected her work and productivity during an already emotional time.
The Solution
Employers increasingly recognize the need to support employees through major life events, especially the loss of a loved one. While many organizations offer benefits such as life insurance, bereavement leave, grief counseling, and will preparation services, these tools are often disjointed and fail to address the complexity of preparing ahead for such transitions. The current offerings, though helpful, don’t provide a comprehensive solution that ensures employees are fully equipped to manage estate-related responsibilities efficiently.
The ideal employee benefit program should offer a proactive, all-in-one solution that helps employees plan for life’s inevitable transitions before they happen. By providing access to a platform that helps employees organize, manage, and share critical estate information, employers can alleviate a significant source of stress during times of loss. This is why we created LifeCloud:
to secure life’s details.
Why LifeCloud
LifeCloud is a comprehensive, ultra-secure platform designed specifically to help individuals and families manage their most critical life information in one centralized location. Unlike traditional benefits that focus only on specific aspects of estate management, LifeCloud offers a holistic approach that addresses estate planning, asset tracking, and seamless document sharing and transitioning after the loss of a loved one.
Here’s why LifeCloud is an ideal solution:
1. Ultra-Secure Platform
LifeCloud is built on a zero-trust architecture, ensuring that only the user and their designated Circle members can access sensitive data. Even LifeCloud employees do not have access to user data, providing unparalleled privacy and security. Employees can feel confident that their information is protected at all times.
2. Seamless Transition Management
LifeCloud’s platform is designed to automatically transfer access to essential documents and information to trusted individuals during critical moments, such as a health crisis or death. This seamless transition eliminates the need for family members to hunt for vital information, alleviating a major source of stress.
3. Avoid Probate by Tracking Assets
LifeCloud helps users avoid the complicated and often costly process of probate by tracking assets and ensuring that estate information is organized, current, and accessible. LifeCloud can track which assets are covered by a Trust and which ones are not. Ensuring your assets are properly covered by a Trust helps to prevent lengthy delays in asset distribution, further reducing the stress on grieving family members.
4. Comprehensive Document Storage
LifeCloud allows employees to store essential documents such as wills, trusts, insurance policies, and medical information, making it easy for them or their family members to access critical data in times of need. Importantly, this is not just for post-death scenarios; LifeCloud is equally valuable for managing information during critical health issues or major life events.
A Unique Solution in the Employee Benefits Landscape
Many employers provide individual benefits like life insurance or will preparation. LifeCloud stands apart in the benefits landscape by offering a unified, all-encompassing solution that integrates estate management, document storage, seamless transitioning of key information upon suffering a loss, and asset tracking.
Current benefits often leave employees to navigate these tools on their own:
- Life insurance helps families financially, but doesn’t assist with locating or managing critical documents.
- Bereavement leave provides time away from work, but doesn’t help organize and prepare estate information.
- Grief counseling helps with emotional recovery, but doesn’t address the overwhelming logistical tasks of managing a loved one’s estate.
LifeCloud fills this gap by combining security, proactive planning, and seamless access to
key information.
Conclusion:
Transforming Employee Well-Being with LifeCloud
LifeCloud isn’t just a platform—it’s a transformative benefit that supports employees during some of life’s most difficult moments. By empowering employees to organize and manage their critical life information, LifeCloud offers lasting peace of mind while reducing stress and distractions. Employers who include LifeCloud in their benefits portfolio show a commitment to the long-term well-being of their workforce, ensuring that their employees have the tools to manage both their personal and professional lives.
We invite HR professionals to explore how LifeCloud can make a meaningful impact for your organization and employees. Contact us today for a demo and further discussion about how LifeCloud can seamlessly integrate into your employee benefits package.
Contact Information:
sales@lifecloud.com
www.lifecloud.com