In 2023, my nephew died back in Australia. As my parents were their only living relatives, they were forced to deal with his estate on the other side of Australia.
This process took over 18 months, involved repeated travel between Melbourne and Sydney, and cost thousands.
The problem was that my nephew had no plans in place, and everything from accessing bank accounts to closing subscriptions and selling vehicles and property was a laborious, burdensome process for my elderly parents.
It's a problem many families face, and one UK startup, Lyfeguard, aims to solve the scattered chaos of personal admin, financial clutter, and unspoken legacy planning.
From the outset, Lyfeguard stands out as a startup with a difference — it’s co-founded by father and son, Gary and Fraser Stewart. I spoke with them to learn more about the vision behind the company and the unique dynamics of building a business together as family.
Turning tragedy into a mission
According to Gary, the idea for Lyfeguard emerged in 2021, when a couple of friends died really suddenly. And in both instances, their families asked him to go and help them with the estate administration. He admits:
"It was terribly problematic. It was very intrusive, really difficult actually finding things — rifling through people's personal possessions just to find documents."
This was compounded by the fact that, in both instances, the deceased were breadwinners, both employed and in their mid-to late fifties.
"The families were effectively three months away from a financial disaster."
Fortunately, in both instances, he was able to find some life insurance, which maintained liquidity.
But it took more than 18 months to close down both estates, including probate and the government's inheritance tax process.
"Even though they were spousal transfers, you still have to go through all the motions. There were also some business shares involved, so it was quite complex."
Sometime later, he asked himself:
'What would happen to my family if the same thing happened to me? Would they know where my stuff was?' And the answer was a resounding no."
Facing the uncomfortable: building utility beyond death
His son Fraser recalls that when they discussed the challenge with a few people, their faces went blank — the realisation came that what we were talking about was largely focused on death.
"Storing documents and information in one place to pass on to family and friends sounds useful, but people don't want to think or plan for death.
That's probably why they end up in the situation of not having information organised."
So the duo knew they had to achieve the same end goal, but flip the idea on its head and give people day-to-day utility from the platform — while still getting that information there and keeping it up to date for family and friends to access later. Fraser, who completed an MBA at Alliance Manchester Business School, credits the experience with giving him the entrepreneurial skills needed to help build and scale a startup.
Bringing information to life through open finance
Lyfeguard works as an end-to-end life-management tool — a place to store information throughout someone's life, accessible whenever needed.
"But we didn't want it to be just a static repository," shared Fraser.
"We wanted to bring that information to life, so we connected in open finance."
That means banking, credit cards, investment platforms, pension providers, loans, crypto, mortgages — pretty much any financial instrument — can be connected in real time. This not only makes it easier to input information, but it also allows Lyfeguard to visualise it in ways that help people actually understand their personal finances: spending, balances, transactions, net worth over time, etc.
Significantly, Lyfeguard offers an active platform, providing people with alerts about upcoming expiry dates, which is hugely helpful.
"There's so much to remember: driving licence renewals, utility bills, MOTs — the list goes on. Lyfeguard gives people that nudge when it's time," shared Gary.
A secure vault for life's most important information
Lyfeguard offers a secure "vault" where users can store documents, passwords, financial accounts, investments, and other vital information — all in one place. On the financial side, it taps into open finance data to give users a unified view of assets, liabilities, spending flows, and net worth, helping demystify what's often fragmented across multiple institutions.
"Ultimately, we want Lyfeguard to put the person at the centre — as their life-management hub — with the ability for everyone important in their life to gain access when they need it: spouse, children, adviser, lawyer, mortgage broker, bank, insurer, etc," shared Gary.
"Right now, information comes via emails, letters, apps — it's fragmented. The way we manage our lives is broken. We're trying to fix that."
Trust, transparency, and control
Beyond being a personal tool, Lyfeguard is built with collaboration and sharing in mind: users can designate "Trusted Users" (family, executors, advisers) who gain access under defined circumstances — now, upon incapacity, or after death.
It's aimed not only at individuals but also serves professionals in the financial advice, legal, and estate-planning sectors by enabling smoother onboarding, richer client insights, and continuity of care across generations.
According to Fraser, it allows people to share as much or as little information as they want, at a point in time that suits them.
"They can choose to share very granular levels of data — either now or after they pass away."
The startup is expanding its reach to include a lasting power of attorney (LPA), which would cover an incapacitation event such as a serious accident, "but even now, the information can be shared immediately; it doesn't need to wait for that kind of event."
The 360-degree client view
Lyfeguard originally started as a business-to-consumer product and later began speaking to a few verticals.
Gary shared:
"The first was financial advice. They were telling us, 'We need all this information about our clients.'
To paint the picture — it was 2021, during or just after COVID. Advisers were seeing clients less in person, more via Teams, and struggling to get client information.
Their existing portals were focused largely on finances — assets and liabilities — which are important, but there's more to a client than what's in their bank account. There's all the softer, peripheral information that sits around that.
Then Consumer Duty came in, which is all about understanding clients better than ever and ensuring advice is genuinely tailored. They can only do that with accurate, up-to-date, personalised information."
This aligned really nicely with Lyfeguard — giving a 360-degree view of the client.
Tackling the £5.5 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer
Further, Gary shared that advisers — especially in the UK but also globally — are struggling with the wealth-transfer issue.
"Between now and 2050, £5.5 trillion will be transferred between generations in the UK. Currently, advisers lose about 90 per cent of clients when the original client dies; the beneficiaries almost never stay with that adviser."
This means they lose the assets under management too, which is how they get paid. If a million pounds' worth of assets are under management, even at a 1 per cent fee, that's £10,000 a year gone.
According to Fraser, Lyfeguard enables the adviser to see who the key people are — executors, beneficiaries, family — and the client can proactively share relevant information with them.
"Other portals don't allow that. So it becomes collaborative planning where the adviser treats the whole family unit as the client, not just one individual."
Lyfeguard is live with 11 independent financial-advice firms and, at the time of our interview, was in the process of signing with a private-client law firm representing around 100,000 clients in the UK.
"They like Lyfeguard because people want to store their wills electronically. Even though digital wills aren't legally valid yet, it gives executors a head start, and we annotate where the original will is held," shared Gary.
"The same goes for lasting powers of attorney. Lawyers also like that it keeps them relevant — clients usually come for a will or an LPA and never return. Lyfeguard keeps that connection alive."
The company is also in advanced discussions with a large UK insurance company that wants to include Lyfeguard in its employee-benefits offering, under the umbrella of financial wellness.
Employees often have benefits like death-in-service insurance or private healthcare that their families don't even know exist. Lyfeguard brings it all into one view.
Fraser asserts:
"Lyfeguard's value is twofold: helping employees see everything in one place, and ensuring families know what's available to them."
The cross-border opportunity
For now, the startup is focused on the UK, but the opportunity is global. Ireland's a great bridge into the EU — close, English-speaking, with a similar legal system. After that, Europe, Australia, and Canada.
"People are more mobile than ever — remote work, international assets, multiple pensions. Lyfeguard will also support storing foreign assets, shared Gary.
"Many people we speak to have pensions or property abroad, and it's incredibly difficult to keep track of. We want to solve that too."
From family to founding team
Of course, I had to ask about the dynamic of a father-and-son team.
Gary admits that it was tricky at first:
"You have to redefine the relationship. But I feel privileged to work with my adult son. I have another son still finishing his accounting exams — I plan to rope him in next! It's special to build something together."
Fraser agreed, sharing, "There aren't many people who can say they've co-founded a company with their dad."
"It felt weird initially — almost like breaking and rebuilding the relationship — but now we're in a great rhythm. It's an absolute privilege."
The startup initially bootstrapped, then raised friends-and-family funding in 2022, with a few follow-on rounds. It's currently raising, targeting a group of angel investors.
It recently completed the FinTech Innovation Lab in London, run by Accenture, which was a major boost.
According to Gary, "it introduced us to so many investors and large enterprise customers — including several of the UK's biggest banks. They love what we're doing. Banks move slowly, of course, but the long-term potential is huge."
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