5 minute read
How technology is driving a bereavement revolution
Tremayne Carew Pole is the found of Life Ledger. Here he outlines a simple, free-to-use death notification platform. Their mission is to help families to simplify the administrative burden of a death.
Technology has been slow to disrupt the death sector, and bereavement in particular has remained something often best dealt with face-to-face. Many believe it is difficult to convey any form of empathy or compassion through a cold computer interface. So traditional processes and mechanisms to help and support the families after a death are still very much in evidence, but change has been slowly creeping in over the last decade. The pandemic has, of course, expedited this, but the foundations had already been laid much earlier than this.
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At the vanguard of this digital revolution has been, surprisingly, the Department of Work & Pensions, whose flagship ‘Tell Us Once’ scheme started life in 2011. They have taken the best part of a decade to reach fruition and bring all the councils in the United Kingdom together to streamline and simplify the public sector notification process. Tell Us Once is a single platform that tells public sector bodies from local councils and the DWP to the Passport Office and the DVLA of a death, and they work closely with the council registrars who can support the bereaved through the early stages.
During the pandemic the Coronavirus Bill began to change the way deaths were registered with provision being made to allow families to register a death remotely, instead of in person at a council register office. After what was an enforced trial, it seems that many councils prefer the remote registration process, and indeed has been something that government have been keen on transforming.
In the months before the pandemic arrived the first reading of the Registers of Births and Deaths Bill 2019 sought to allow families to register deaths remotely. This is indeed something that is here to stay. The natural next step would be the issuing of digital death certificates, but this is something the government are reluctant to do at present, although it would certainly have a significant impact on what has traditionally been a disjointed and somewhat sclerotic death notification process.
The death notification process has always been fragmented, frustrating and analogue. Families of the deceased have to turn out cupboards and drawers to discover what accounts their loved one had; then research what documentation and information is required (because it’s never the same) and then work out which channel to notify them through. Before spending hours filling in the same online forms, or having the same conversations, over and over again. All at a time when they are exhausted, confused and vulnerable.
Astonishingly, the public sector led the charge right up until 2018 when the Death Notification Service launched, looking after just 25 financial services companies. The brainchild of UK Finance (the trade association for the UK’s banking and financial services sector) it has been slow to get off the ground and offers only a limited scope even three years after launch. Then in early in 2021, Life Ledger launched to notify multiple companies in multiple sectors, a Tell Us Once for the private sector.
Their intuitive, free-to-use platform sends notifications of death to over 750 companies in the UK that range from banks and insurers to loyalty cards and social media. Users follow a simple sign-up process and identity verification process before adding details of the deceased, which are cross checked with the general register office.
The families can request that household accounts and insurance policies are switched to surviving partners, children or executors to ensure continuity of coverage and service, before the notifications are electronically sent. Confirmation of receipt and action can return in as little as five minutes. The service dramatically simplifies the administrative burden that the bereaved have to shoulder post death and helps them concentrate on grieving for those they have lost.
During the pandemic many bereavement counselling services have struggled to connect those in need with those who can help, and waiting lists to speak to a trained counsellor can stretch into the weeks and months. Coming to the fore in 2020 has been GriefChat, an online grief counselling service that gives the bereaved instant access to a trained grief counsellor. GriefChat has come into its own providing a safe space for people to share their stories and
be supported through a difficult time through an online chat box. While some may prefer the personal nature of faceto-face counselling and support groups, others have found succour in the immediacy and anonymity of chatting through GriefChat.
Set up by Catherine Betley, a seasoned veteran with 20 years’ experience in the counselling sector, the service has had a remarkable take up and deals with almost 50,000 sessions a year. The service is free of charge and allows those in need to reach out almost instantaneously receiving support when they most need it.
Sitting within the estate administration sector a new raft of companies has appeared dealing with the tortuous probate process. Simplifying the journey, removing the need for expensive lawyers and providing off-the-shelf packages to allow the more cash-strapped bereaved families to self-serve. At the forefront of this is Trust Inheritance, whose online probate service provides a DIY toolkit for individual users to apply for probate and fully administer the estate. Similarly, Farewill the death-tech juggernaut offering everything from digital probate and will writing to funeral planning and direct cremation, have been making in-roads into making the estate administration and probate process more accessible.
Bereavement after the pandemic is beginning to look very different than it did just two years ago. While technology can lack the personality and intimacy of real-life contact, it can provide an immediacy and simplicity that takes both the strain of administration and the isolation of loss away from families when they are at their most fragile and vulnerable. What is for certain, this is only just the beginning of the digital bereavement revolution, and it will be fascinating to see how it will transform living and dying in the next decade.
Tremayne Carew Pole
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