Recent research suggests that only around a third of people have a will. Alarmingly, that means that around 40 million people living in the UK don’t currently have one.

Of these people surveyed, around 30% of parents still don’t have a will, and approximately a quarter of the population in the UK admit to having not even thought about writing a will.

The main reason for people not having a will is usually because they think they are too poor to need one. However, every year the treasury earns billions £ from both inheritance tax as well as from people who die intestate.

Other common reasons for not having a will are; because the person feels that they are unlikely to die soon, they don’t feel comfortable discussing death with a stranger, they’re worried about the number of decisions that they’ll need to make, and they generally don’t know where to start.

Research also suggests that men are slightly more likely than women to have a will and only around 1 in 10 people have told anyone where their will is kept.