Coronavirus outbreak causes a surge in wills
the constant rising death toll has some people getting their final affairs in order
Image: STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images
Image: STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images
(ABC News) —Earlier this week, Tara Waters made her will.
She’s just 42 years old and the mother of two young children.
But amid the climate of uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the nation, she, like people of many ages and walks of life, is grappling with the difficult subject and not taking any chances.
“Obviously with the coronavirus, everyone is kind of susceptible to it,” Waters, a police officer from Weymouth, Massachusetts, told ABC News.
“I feel like in this day and age everyone is kind of thinking about their mortality,” she added. “I think people are seeing for the first time they are very vulnerable everybody is.”
The coronavirus has spread rapidly in the U.S. and led to a skyrocketing demand for wills, even for those who aren’t senior citizens. What once appeared to be a scourge that was primarily affecting the elderly and those with underlying health issues has now been revealed to hospitalize and kill those who are younger, seemingly at an alarming rate.
“I’m not loaded, I don’t have a fortune for people to fight over, but I have two small kids,” Waters said. “I definitely want to make sure that if something happens to my husband or I, our wishes are put down in legal form.”
She said in speaking to different police officers and other first responders, “Everyone is saying, I should probably get a will done just in case.”
Renee Fry, the CEO of Gentreo, an online estate-planning platform, told ABC News that they saw a 143% increase week-over-week in people creating wills with them last week, and she predicts it will be an event larger uptick this week, estimating it’s “probably closer 220%.”
