life.file is a female-founded African startup and legal technology company launched by Claire Keet and Sinal Govender. They are on a simple mission to reimagine the way that people experience the legal parts of life and death. The law is a guest at life’s best and worst moments - like starting a business, beginning or ending a marriage, or burying loved ones. These experiences are universal. Claire and Sinal believe in using intuitive, people focused design and normal-people-speak to create a user experience of the law that is simple, educational and friendly. Their team works where law, design and technology meet and they have picked the best bits of all three to create life.file.
In June 2021, life.file was officially launched. It is a web app that helps people create, store and share a life.file of all the legal life stuff their loved ones will need one day when they’re not around. It’s a bit like “Dropbox for death” but so much more. life.file is a subscription web app that costs users R29 / month paid annually at R348 or R49 / month paid monthly. life.file guides users through the creation of a life.file containing all the legal life things they should have sorted out. life.file’s colourful, intuitive interface suggests all of the more obvious legal things like wills and living wills - plus all of the things that users probably aren’t thinking of. Like “what happens to my pets when I’m six feet under?” or “what happens to the domestic worker I employ when I die?”
life.file’s document builder allows users to create their own bespoke wills in minutes - with new legal documents like a living will and power of attorney launching soon. Users are guided through all the important questions to consider, with friendly educational pop-up resources along the way that explain complicated legal jargon in normal-people-speak. Once a user creates their life.file, it is stored in life.file’s encrypted digital vaults. Security is very important to life.file, which is why the company has adopted,, industry best practices to keep user documents safe. Users are encouraged to share their life.files with a few trusted people in their lives - like a family members or their spouses - for “one day when…”. life.file helps users make sure that the people in their lives who’ll be left behind one day have what they need to wrap up their estate. Without the unnecessary admin. And heartache. And guessing at passwords.
What makes life.file different is that it helps people to reimagine the way they experience the legal parts of life and death. People don't like to think about and plan for life's worst moments - like dying or getting really sick. 70% of South Africans don’t even have a will. Getting your affairs in order is confronting, costly, time consuming and overwhelming. But worse, dying without your legal “ducks in a row” causes immense stress for the people you leave behind. Having your legal life stuff organised is more than being on top of your admin for “just in case”. It’s an empowering way of living your best life - reduce stress, avoiding disaster and looking after the people you love most when things go pear shaped. Traditionally, creating a life.file has been a time consuming, costly and confronting exercise. All to the benefit of financial institutions, law firms and insurance companies. Because death is the single universal certainty for every person on the planet, we are passionate about breaking down the traditional barriers to entry and making the experience of getting "your ducks in a row" easier, friendlier and more affordable.
life.file officially launched on 17 June 2021. All things Covid considered, Claire and Sinal didn't host an in-person launch event. Instead, they did their first public showcasing of life.file along with three other legal tech startups on the South African Legal Technology (SALT) Network. The two founders have big aspirations! Their goal is to have 1M+ life.file users across five legal jurisdictions in five years - starting with South Africa. They aim to achieve this vision by leveraging the very best and most disruptive combination of human centric design, AI, gamification, education, and systems engineering to inspire people to create, maintain, store and share a life.file of their legal life content. By completely reimagining the way that people experience and engage with the legal and administrative aspects of life and death, their aim is to create greater access to justice and help people live happier lives. Users can create, store and share their life.files at www.lifefile.co.za.
Speaking about the launch of life.file, co-founder Claire Keet says, “Despite the legal parts of life and death being a universal certainty, no one was helping any of us get prepared. Not in the affordable, user friendly way we want to be helped anyway. life.file is our solution to a problem we couldn’t find a good enough solution for.”
Sinal Govender, life.file’s other co-founder says, “Making legal resources available in ways that are friendly, accessible and affordable seem like obvious choices, but they’re rule breaking, opening up an industry that normally makes legal life stuff intimidating, overwhelming and costly.”
To find out more about life.file, send an email to hello@lifefile.co.za or visit the company’s website http://www.lifefile.co.za or Instagram: @mylifefile
