Evergreen Funeral Care

The Problem#

• Funeral wishes are buried in wills and letters of wishes — documents often not read until days or weeks after death, by which time funeral arrangements have already been made
• Families make decisions under emotional pressure without knowing their loved one had specific preferences: cremation rather than burial, a particular funeral home, a pre-paid plan already in place
• Evergreen estimates that in 30% of cases where the deceased had documented funeral wishes, those wishes were not followed
• 12% of pre-paid plan customers’ families arrange funerals elsewhere — not knowing a plan exists — requiring costly refund processing

How They’d Use INHERIT#

• Funeral wishes are modelled in wish.json with wishType: "funeral", capturing funeralArrangementType ("burial", "cremation", "green_burial", "sea_burial", "donation_to_science")
• funeralCeremonyType ("religious", "secular", "hybrid", "none") and funeralCeremonyReligion record ceremony preferences
• funeralProviderOrganisationId references Evergreen in organisation.json with organisationType: "funeral_provider"
• The funeralPrePaid boolean and funeralPrePaidPolicyNumber flag whether a pre-paid funeral plan is in place
• bindingNature distinguishes between "non_binding" (most funeral wishes), "religiously_obligatory" (e.g. Islamic burial within 24 hours), and "culturally_obligatory"
• addresseePersonId links the wish to the person responsible for carrying it out — typically the executor

The Integration#

• Import-focused: Evergreen receives INHERIT documents (or the funeral-relevant subset) from estate planning platforms, solicitors, and pre-paid funeral plan providers
• When a death is registered and Evergreen is contacted, they immediately check whether structured funeral wishes exist, whether a pre-paid plan is in place, and what the deceased’s preferences were
• This information is available before the first meeting with the family — not days after the funeral

The Business Case#

• Pre-paid plan detection eliminates the 12% leakage where families unknowingly arrange funerals elsewhere — worth approximately £85,000 per year
• Arrangement meeting time reduces from 90 minutes to 45 minutes when wishes are known in advance
• Customer satisfaction scores projected to increase from 82% to 94%
• Families feel reassured that their loved one’s preferences are being followed — transforming the customer experience at the most difficult time

Before / After#

Without INHERIT:

1. Person records funeral wishes in their will and takes out a pre-paid funeral plan with Evergreen
2. Person dies; the family — unaware of the pre-paid plan — contacts a different funeral provider
3. The will is read days later; funeral wishes are discovered after arrangements are already made
4. The pre-paid plan must be refunded, the family feels guilt that wishes were not honoured
5. Evergreen loses the customer and processes a costly refund

With INHERIT:

1. Person records funeral wishes in wish.json as part of their estate plan, naming Evergreen as preferred provider
2. Person dies; the estate workflow triggers immediate delivery of funeral wishes to Evergreen
3. Evergreen contacts the family within hours, confirming the pre-paid plan and the deceased’s preferences
4. The family meets Evergreen already knowing their loved one’s wishes will be honoured