Twenty years ago, I had a near-aneurysm. I remember the fear, the fragility, and then something unexpected: clarity. I decided that if I had been given more time, I would spend it on what I loved—writing and travel. That decision changed the direction of my life.
Two weeks ago, death came closer again. Internal bleeding left me with only one third of my blood and temporarily paralyzed me. Once more, I survived. And once more, the experience was strangely life-affirming. Not because suffering is beautiful, but because the nearness of death strips life down to what is essential.
Death, I have learned, does not diminish life. It gives life weight.
The call to adventure
In the hero’s journey, the call to adventure often arrives as a rupture: an illness, a loss, a diagnosis, an accident. The ordinary world is interrupted, and the hero must face a truth previously avoided.
My ruptures were medical. But everyone eventually receives some version of that call. It may come through the death of a parent, a child leaving home, a career ending, a marriage changing, or simply a birthday that makes us count the years ahead rather than the years behind.
Financial services usually enters the story after the rupture. It offers forms, calculations and products. But its deeper opportunity is to enter before the rupture—and help people turn mortality into meaning.
The old story: fear and avoidance
For decades, our industry has told death as a horror story: a catastrophe to insure against, a risk to model, a form to complete, a payout to process. The customer is cast as a frightened borrower of time; the adviser as a clerk of doom.
No wonder people look away. Avoidance leaves families facing grief while also untangling money, wishes and unfinished arrangements. DeadHappy, the British insurtech, built its original mission around precisely this problem: because society avoids talking about death, people fail to plan for it, and loved ones are left with both emotional loss and practical chaos.sonr
But a story built on fear produces narrow products. A story built on meaning produces transformation.
DeadHappy: the provocateur
DeadHappy understood that life insurance needed a new narrative. Instead of asking only, “How much cover do you need?”, it asked customers what they wanted to happen when they died.sonr
Its “Deathwish” concept let policyholders direct a future payout toward something personally meaningful: clearing a mortgage, supporting children, funding education, or enabling a loved one’s aspiration. It also tried to make cover simpler and more flexible through a short digital application and annually renewable insurance.
The company was not without flaws. Its provocative marketing, including an advertisement that used Harold Shipman’s image, caused a backlash that contributed to the loss of insurer support; DeadHappy later entered administration in 2024. The lesson is not to imitate its shock tactics. It is to learn from its courage—and add the empathy and responsibility it sometimes lacked.
The insight remains powerful: people do not simply want a payout. They want their love, values and intentions to continue after them.
From protection to transformation
This is the move from the protection economy to the transformation economy.
In the protection economy, we ask: What loss must be compensated? In the transformation economy, we ask: What life do you want to protect, continue, or make possible?
| Old story | New story |
|---|---|
| Death is a risk event | Death is a moment of meaning and continuity |
| The product is a payout | The product is a legacy plan |
| The customer buys cover | The customer designs consequences |
| The adviser sells security | The adviser enables aspirations |
| The conversation is about dying | The conversation is about what deserves to live on |
A pension is not merely an income stream. It is the funding mechanism for a future self: the freedom to write, travel, teach, care, create, rest or begin again. Life insurance is not merely a cheque after death. It can be a child’s education, a partner’s fresh start, a family home, a business handed on, or a final act of generosity.
The financial professional becomes not a merchant of mortality, but a story architect—someone who helps people turn money into meaning.
The adviser as guide
Every transformation story needs a guide. In the old insurance narrative, the adviser was often the gatekeeper. In the new one, the adviser is the companion who helps the customer face the dragon: mortality, uncertainty, dependency and legacy.
That requires different questions:
- “If you were no longer here, what would you most want your family to be able to do?”
- “Which people, places or projects would you want your money to protect?”
- “What would make your loved ones say, years later, ‘That was exactly what they would have wanted’?”
- “What part of your life do you want to continue beyond you?”
These are not morbid questions. They are clarifying questions. They turn a policy document into a declaration of intent.
What death taught me
After my near-aneurysm, I chose writing and travel. I chose the life I actually wanted, rather than the life I thought I should endure.
After my internal bleeding, I understood something quieter: that the awareness of death is not a dark cloud over life. It is a light behind it. It makes a walk more valuable, a conversation more precious, a book more urgent, a journey more necessary.
That is the story financial services should now tell. Not: You may die.
But: Your life can keep giving.
