Interview with Bernerdine Noronha: An Entrepreneur Transforming The Way We Organise for Death

myFRP is a digital storage platform helping you to access important information when you- or your loved ones- need it most. Users can keep all important information and documents online in one hack-tested place to access now or for your family to unlock one day if you’re not around. If a loved one is hospitalised, or suffering from a serious illness, the tool can be used as a reference point for finding appropriate contacts and information needed to continue their day-to-day.

The tool is designed so only users and a maximum of five people nominated by a user can ever see the data. When your nominees access data, they must pass through two-step authentication, and only then will the encrypted information be decoded. This means personal data is stored securely and cannot be shared, sold or used by third parties.
You can store all your personal information there, from things like bills, savings, investments and debts, to family networks and personal details like birthplace and employment, and vital documents including wills, and burial and organ donor preferences. You can even keep track of appointments, pet information, logins, passwords and pins.

myFRP is partnered with Microsoft Azure so everything is reliably stored on the Cloud. myFRP also has the following safety certificates: ISO 27001, PCI DSS, Cyber Essentials, and is GDPR compliant.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
In 2011, my husband was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer and I felt my whole world crumbling around me. With my husband being rushed into hospital for serious and lengthy treatment, I had to contemplate my new reality- how would I finish my studies, work full-time, single-handedly run our household and take care of our three children with my husband so suddenly not around?

I found it incredibly stressful working out how to juggle all of the household admin and sort out the family finances with my husband so incapacitated, and at times wished we had prepared for the worst long ago and put all of our important information in one place. When, two years later, my family was hit by the tragedy of a sudden death, I witnessed first-hand the difficulty the bereaved can face settling a spouse’s estate. The family member we lost had been responsible for all his family finances, and there was a huge amount of anxiety and stress caused with the family having to pick this up and figure out the necessary documentation, sifting through mounds of paperwork.

These two situations made me think that our family could not be the only people in this position. I was made aware of the lack of support out there to help grieving families deal with these complex practicalities at such difficult times of emotional upheaval.

I began gathering more information about this area because I was realising we need a more open dialogue when it comes to death, and a change of attitude so that we can be more prepared. I believe the stigma needs to be removed around these sensitive topics. Families need to be helped to receive what they are eligible for- unfortunately, you have to fight for what is yours or it will get lost. Companies don’t come dangling a cheque in front of you.

I have now made it my mission to help people keep track of their assets, so these issues can be easily settled when the time comes. We need to learn to not only look after ourselves, but our families too- and that includes after our own deaths.
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
The pandemic has coincided with a lot of development for us. Though I had been researching and thinking about the need for a tool to help solve the problems outlined above, it wasn’t until 2019 that My Family Recovery Plan was founded.

Like most businesses, the pandemic disrupted our plans for the launch of myFRP and so it was imperative we adapted and relied on digital innovations to reach prospective consumers. We are always growing, and this unforeseen obstacle emphasised the foundation of our product – remaining paperless and online.

Things then moved very quickly and we designed, developed and launched a digital personal storage platform, myFRP, just this year, following a successful pilot.

Our research has found that so many people are unprepared for an unexpected death and would have great need of a tool like myFRP; one in four Brits said they wouldn’t know enough about their partner’s finances to be able to wind up their estate in the event of sudden death, and a quarter don’t have all the details of their children’s affairs and plans if their partner or co-parent were to pass away. myFRP can help ensure such critical life admin can be carried out without added stress in any difficult circumstances where a partner is incapacitated.

Of course, the pandemic has been a time when mortality has been more front of mind than usual because of the tragic loss of life across the globe, and so we believe that there may be a shift in people’s attitudes towards death, with many focusing on planning and getting their affairs in order so that their loved ones are better provided for.
 

What can we hope to see from myFRP in the future?

 
Our goal is to continue making users’ important documents straightforward to locate and retrieve. Although, we appreciate how time-consuming the initial input of data and documents can be, and so we are currently working on secure systems to synchronise data across other tools for a smarter and swifter process.

We are continually developing ways to make the tool personable for each of its users and so we are presently in the process of implementing features such as voice recognition and Voice Al, keeping in mind our users who suffer from memory loss ailments such as dementia.

Users will also have the ability to enable alerts for important events, dates and bills. This way they can stay more organised, keeping on top of their personal admin. This will be engrained in conjunction with a reports module so users will visibly be able to see their outgoing bills each month, which we hope will help with money management. Alongside this, we have noticed a percentage of our users utilise myFRP for business and so similarly to the reports module a business module will be implemented for small business owners so they can easily keep track of their incomings and outgoings.

On top of that, we are in the process of developing two new gifting initiatives: GoaL and Legacy Box. GoaL (Gift of a Lifetime) is a means to fund a loved one in a once-in-a-lifetime event. The Legacy Box is a place where you can store time-triggered letters, photographs and voice recordings for loved ones to receive in the future – a departing gift if you will.