Yahoo Finance World-first system cracks down on 'invisible' bills problem: 'Only going to get worse'
BillWill takes all the hassle and stress out of your hands and lets you focus on more important things.
A new platform has launched in Australia that helps you cancel or transfer bills after you die. Depending on how organised you are, it could take a loved one hours to contact each individual subscription service provider to let them know you've passed away.
BillWill aims to take all that hassle out of your hands so you can focus on processing your grief and sorting out the funeral and burial arrangements. The app's founder, Colin Jowell, told Yahoo Finance he was motivated to launch the service after dealing with this situation first-hand.
"My dad was a lawyer, he was an organised man, and we knew he was sick, and he tried to put everything in place," he said.
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"But even the most organised man in the world managed to not see one particular direct debit that was quietly firing away from a service he wasn't even using anymore."
Jowell revealed it took nine months and many back-and-forth conversations with the company to finally shut that bill down.
But he said many people don't have their subscriptions or bills laid out in a categorised way and it can leave loved ones searching high and low to make sure they aren't getting charged late payments or services that aren't needed anymore.
So Jowell started working on BillWill and, after two years of work, he's now launched the product in Australia.
"These bills have become invisible," he said. "It'd be great if they still came through the mail and told you you're late in payment, but you don't even get that reminder, so we just see it as a problem that's only going to get worse over time."
Do you have a story? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com
How does BillWill work?
A person who signs up for BillWill can upload up to 20 different bills or subscription services. You then declare whether you want that bill to be cancelled or transferred to a new person in the event of your death.
The user has to nominate a custodian for their account and that person will be contacted by BillWill to confirm all the instructions laid out by the user.
You can either upload the bills manually, or you can allow BillWill access to your bank accounts and it will use Open Banking technology to scan all your payments to find what bills you have each month.
This is the world's first platform to organise your bills that uses that type of technology.
"We focused on the big stuff through the open banking algorithm to make sure that things like insurance and water were picked up through that technology," Jowell said.
Once the custodian gives the green light, BillWill will be the one in charge of contacting all the subscription services on your behalf.
It costs $45 every year to keep your account active and there's also a $149 sign-up fee.
Eliminates dozens of hours of admin
BillWill estimated that closing or transferring someone's bills after they die can take more than 50 hours.
That alone was enough to convince Sydney resident Lauren to sign up for the service.
She does all the life admin for her family and didn't want to burden them with all that hassle of sending over documents or staying on hold on the phone.
"I don't think my husband in particular would know where to start if anything was to happen [to me]," she explained to Yahoo Finance.
"It probably took around 10 minutes to sign up. And it was really surprising, I did the Open Banking option and that was really magical because I can't even remember what direct debits I've got set up."
She discovered that she has thousands of dollars worth of bills and subscriptions that need to be paid every month and if they were missed it could cost even more in late payments.
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