Ashford-based Squiggle Consult has celebrated nine years in business but hitting the milestone of extending its complimentary wills programme to c. six million UK adults.
The business, founded in June 2017, works with approximately 200 partner organisations including employer schemes, charity legacy partners, IFAs, accountants, mortgage advisers and conveyancers across the South East and the wider UK. The complimentary wills programme operates across more than 25 employer and benefits partnerships, ranging from direct workplace schemes with regional employers through to a recent agreement with a national reward and benefits platform. Under each partnership, employees and members can access a free, fully advised will delivered one-to-one by a trained Squiggle estate planning consultant. Lasting powers of attorney and wider estate planning are available at preferential rates for those who want them. In-house estate administration is offered through its sister business Squiggle Probate Ltd
The most recent partner is Shepherd Neame, Britain’s oldest brewer. Founded in Faversham in 1698 and still family-owned in its fifth generation, Shepherd Neame employs around 1,550 staff across its head office, brewery and 286 pubs and hotels in London and the South East. The agreement is open to all of its team members.
Founder Kieran Osborne told Today’s Wills and Probate his view of how the business should operate is unchanged in nine years: technology belongs in the back office, freeing consultants to spend more time with clients, not sitting between them: “Nine years ago we set out to build an estate planning firm that put a person at the front of the conversation. We have grown, the sector has changed, but the principle has not. What we hear from clients every week is straightforward. When someone is making a will, or sitting in the days after a bereavement, they want a human at the other end of the phone. That is the model we have built around, and the milestone of being able to offer that approach to six million people feels like the right moment to mark it.”
