Bereavement - and then all the admin; How to make it less painful.

After someone has died the process of grieving can be made worse by having to deal with the “Sadmin” in other words, the admin and paperwork involved in closing or transferring their accounts. This can be overwhelming when you least feel like it. Often the help desks or customer support teams at companies aren’t  trained to deal as sensitively as they might with someone who has recently been bereaved – you can be left on hold,  transferred, often more than once, and find yourself having to tell the same story and repeating the same details over and over again. It can leave you feeling so angry.

How dealing with all the “sadmin’ makes you feel….

However there is finally a solution  – Settld.  Launched earlier this year aim to solve this problem creating a platform which replicates the “Tell Us Once’ service.

Tell Us Once is a free government service that allows you to report a death when you suffer a bereavement – and the service will tell the central and local government departments who need to know. This covers organisations such as The Department of Work and Pensions, DVLA for a driving license, HMRC for tax, The Passport Office and the Local Authority if there are Council Tax payments, rent, or refunds due.

This is hugely supportive – but until very recently there wasn’t a similar service to deal with personal and financial services such as bank accounts, investments such as ISA’s, any shares held, or utilities and broad band. But earlier this year Settld was launched by the founder Vicky Wilson who had to deal with all the paperwork after her grandmother died – realised how painful it was, and became convinced there had to be a way to make it easier for others.

Together with the team they created a simple and secure webform, which takes 10 minutes to fill in. I have tried it and it works brilliantly. They will deal with utilities, banking, pensions, insurance, broadband, social media...the list goes on. They notify all companies in one go, which means you only have to say it once. And for members of the public, it’s completely free.

Once they have notified each company of the death, they chase up on any delays, and keep the status of all account requests tracked in one place.

If you're facing a bereavement, or know someone who is, I would recommend letting Settld offer support.