How three men playing foosball started an end of life firm

Kinherit, run by life insurance specialist and former IFA Ben Mason, restructuring adviser Richard Thomson, and data security expert Tom King, helps protect assets and ensure client's final wishes are carried out.

The trio developed online vault Kinvault late last year, which stores client's valuable information from banking to insurance, simplifying the inheritance process.

Kinherit chief executive Ben Mason said Kinvault would help prevent billions of pounds in lost assets because companies did not know who to pay it out to.

"Because I know how IFAs work, we developed a handover service called the Kinvault, which essentially [includes] all your pension, property, ISAs, insurance - it becomes a digital locker and then the beneficiaries get given everything," he explained.

Kinvault is free for existing Kinherit adviser clients or can be purchased as a standalone product by other advisers for £250.

Mason said there were about 30 advice firms or 130 advisers partnered with Kinherit and about five advisers using Kinvault as a standalone product. He said enquiries had lifted in recent weeks after the coronavirus outbreak.

Mason, who came seventh at the table football European Championship in doubles, met Richard through the sport almost 20 years ago. King, also a table football fan, then joined the pair.

Kinherit executive chairman Richard Thomson, formally chairman of the British Foosball Association, sought advice from Mason for will and trust advice for his parents then later himself.

Thomson said a major aim of Kinherit was to modernise the wills and trust process.

"The wills and trusts industry in the UK still operates the way it did 50 years ago so the first thing were trying to do is bring it into the 21^st century, the will writing process," he said.

"The second thing was the handover services - because of the films everyone thinks that when someone dies a lawyer reads the will, what happens in practice is a family member goes into the study, rummages around in attempts to find the will, which is very different to an organised plan with solicitors overseeing it."

Thomson added that the preservation of assets was the next key priority for Kinherit, which made it easier to work out what a person owned and how to pass that onto their beneficiaries.

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