Employees shouldn’t be blindsided by end of life decisions. How benefits can help ease the burden

What’s going to happen when I die?

It’s a question nobody wants to think about, yet ultimately has to be considered if you want to ensure your last years are lived well and ease the burden on loved ones you leave behind. But wondering where to begin can be daunting and discouraging, giving employers another key area to step up and provide guidance, resources and support.

Earlier this year, Lantern — an end of life planning organization — launched its employee benefit resource: Lantern at Work. This benefit gives employers the chance to help their employees grapple with an emotionally challenging topic in order to make plans for the future. Alternatively, it also offers employers and employees support and concierge services that are meant to help people suffering from a loss.

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“Typically people associate end of life planning with just a will, and while that is an incredibly important component to it, there are actually a lot of other factors to consider,” says Alyssa Ruderman, co-founder and COO of Lantern. “It ranges from the logistical things like what accounts you have open that somebody else will need to close on your behalf, to the legal world of wills, trusts and advanced care directives, all the way to the more emotional and legacy piece.”

Some organizations already offer benefits that can help with end of life planning, such as life insurance — which is offered by 82% of employers, according to the Society for Human Resource Management — and financial wellness benefits — which is offered by 83% of employers, according to Prudential — which can sometimes include estate planning tools. But in order to make this process as easy as possible, a more comprehensive benefit is needed to help guide employees through the process and provide support for those employees who are in mourning.

The Lantern at Work benefit provides employees with a step-by-step, interactive end-of-life planning platform for their own pre-planning — like outlining their funeral — as well as resources for after-loss planning, like dealing with wills and providing manager training for supporting grieving workers. The company will also evaluate an employee’s bereavement and caregiving needs in order to help employers come up with the best benefits strategy for the situation.

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These benefits are more needed than ever before, as COVID has made the experience of death and grief more commonplace: 57% are grieving the loss of someone close to them at any given time, according to research from a WebMD grief survey, and 53% of employees suffering a loss feel the sympathy they receive from work comes with an expiration date. Making sure your benefits address the good and bad will make employees feel heard and supported at all stages of life.

“Grief isn’t one size fits all,” says Shivani Banker, head of corporate partnerships at Lantern. “It's really important for employers to treat every situation of bereavement individually, and really understand how grief changes employees intellectually and psychologically.”

As employees continue to drive the conversation around benefits, end of life planning benefits may become as accessible as other long-term planning perks, like retirement. And just like saving for retirement, it is never too early for employees to start considering what’s next.

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“The majority of our user base is actually below the age of 45, which we're really excited about because our belief is that everybody should have an end of life plan,” Ruderman says. “You have decisions that you don't want made on your behalf, you have belongings that are either of financial or sentimental value and you want to decide where those things go. A lot of folks think they don't need to be getting these things in order until a certain age or a certain financial milestone, but it really is for everybody.”