DeadHappy

DeadHappy was a Leicester-based digital life-insurance intermediary, founded in 2013 by Phil Zeidler and Andrew Knott, that sold pay-as-you-go cover and let customers record 'deathwishes' for how payouts should be used. It raised a £4M Series A in 2019 and a $15M round in March 2022 from Octopus, Headline, Volution, Verso Capital and Channel 4 Ventures, reaching more than 25,000 active policies and about £2.5M of revenue. Its marketing repeatedly drew censure, including an advert featuring Harold Shipman that prompted ASA and FCA action, and in March 2024 underwriter Shepherds Friendly stopped backing its policies, closing the firm to new business. Adam Stephens and Kevin Ley of Evelyn Partners were appointed joint administrators on 24 June 2024 to transfer policies back to the insurers. The administration moved directly to dissolution in July 2026 and the company was struck off the register in October 2026.

Existing policies stayed in force and were transferred back to the underwriting insurers while the business traded on a limited basis with a skeleton staff. Co-founder Andrew Knott gave Gazette notice in May 2025 of his intention to re-use the DeadHappy name; the company itself moved from administration to dissolution in July 2026.

An intermediary that does not carry its own risk lives or dies by its underwriter. DeadHappy's shock-advertising strategy built awareness but cost it regulatory goodwill and ultimately the capacity partner it depended on, leaving a book of 25,000 policies with no way to write new ones.