Deathtech: Digitizing End-of-Life Planning in Mexico

Death is not the problem. The real disaster is the disorder it leaves behind.

After years of exploring the root of the issue, we realized something critical: the lack of planning not only affects the families who remain, it also creates structural lag for institutions, health systems, insurers, notaries, overloaded courts, governments, and even entire economies.

This problem of assets without designated beneficiaries often goes unnoticed. In Mexico, these losses are already estimated at MX$100 billion pesos (US$5.8 billion). In the United States, there is even an “Unclaimed Property Day” on Feb. 1 to raise awareness of these lost assets.

We live in an era when almost every economic sector has gone digital banking, healthcare, education, mobility, retail.

And death?

It’s still managed on paper: opaque, slow, disconnected, bureaucratic, and emotionally exhausting.

Welcome to DeathTech

This is why a new sector has emerged: deathtech --- an industry that applies technology to organize the inevitable and turn chaos into clarity through emotional, financial, and legal support, from digital wills, legacy platforms, embedded insurance, post-mortem identities, funerals, pet funerals and cremation, and care for dependents and pets, to emotional, financial, legal, and estate instructions for those who remain. This ecosystem includes afterlife solutions and end-of-life technologies. In short, it’s insurtech applied to life’s end, bringing tech to ultimate loss. It even contemplates using NFTs to certify and safeguard memories or digital legacies when it makes cultural and legal sense.

This sector is a blue ocean of opportunity, untouched ground for entrepreneurs, and a product or service everyone will need at some point.

And while it may sound cold or disruptive, this revolution has already begun elsewhere. Why not in Latin America? Why not start in Mexico, a country that already honors death with Día de Muertos? Doesn’t it make sense?

What if digitizing your last wishes were as normal as buckling your seatbelt?

There was a time when no one wore a seatbelt. Five of us in the back seat, and nothing happened … until it did.

Today, we don’t start the car without hearing that automatic “click.”

Why?

Because culture changed.

Because we understood that protecting ourselves isn’t pessimism, it’s responsibility.

That’s what we seek with advance planning: Remove the taboo, demystify the fear, and make planning something everyday, automatic, and essential.

Talking about death doesn’t summon it. If only it were that simple. If you buy a lottery ticket, you win, but all of us already have a ticket to die.

What you don’t change, you choose.

That’s why, in a conversation with my partners, we decided not just to get involved but to commit to a movement to democratize advance planning. That’s how Antes de Morir was born. It is the first Spanish-language podcast that doesn’t talk about death, it talks about life.

Latin America: A Region Without Seatbelts

The numbers are alarming. In the region, life insurance and funeral coverage remain low.
Not because they don’t exist, but because they’re not considered important.

Do you insure your car in case it crashes? Do you buy health insurance in case you get sick?
Then, why not insure yourself for the only thing that will certainly happen?

The answer is cultural.

Across Mexico, more than 800,000 people die every year. That means that every day, more than 2,190 families face the loss of someone close.
Of those, at least 700 had no terminal illness. They weren’t bedridden. They didn’t see it coming. They simply left home, and didn’t return.

Mexico is a country that celebrates its dead with flowers, colors, and altars, but it is also where more than 90% die without leaving a plan, a farewell, or a love letter. Only 7% have talked with their families about what to do when they’re gone, or have left a will or any kind of plan.

If the average household in Mexico has 3.6 people, every year there are at least 2.9 million people in direct mourning. That’s more than 2% of the population. 1 in every 45 Mexicans suffers a direct loss each year.

From Idea to Cultural Change

In the previous article, I shared how Past Post was born: a digital platform that brings together afterlife and insurtech solutions to leave everything in order for when you’re no longer here.

And from experience I can say: People aren’t ready to talk about solutions, until they see what happens when there’s no planning.

That’s also why we launched Antes de Morir: to talk about a lighter life, a freer life, with less guilt.

And in that intimate space for conversation, we began to see transformation: 

• People who had never spoken about the topic now share their stories.
• Families who once avoided conflict now sit down to plan.
• Companies that didn’t know how to support their teams now have a new emotional and estate tool.

Because planning isn’t dying, it’s transcending.

Digitizing your last wishes isn’t a fad. It’s a strategic necessity.

For individuals.

For families.

For institutions.

For countries.

Because a legacy isn’t something you leave the day you die. It’s something you build in life, with awareness, intention, and technology.

And this is only the beginning.

Someday, we will be the story someone tells. Let’s leave the best story possible.