To the banks: How to treat the bereaved

Traditionally we learned this from letters and phones calls. Now we have email, social media, online comments and the number of people who feel it is worth sharing electronically.

A couple of weeks back my Daily Mail colleague Victoria Bischoff wrote a brilliant piece revealing the added anguish some financial institutions had put her through following the recent death of her mother.

At the time I tweeted that the piece entitled, ‘When mum died Lloyds made the grief even harder to bear’, should be read by every financial company chief executive.

Reading the online comments and hearing of the reaction from both inside and outside the paper made it clear she was speaking for all those feeling bruised and battered by the uncaring way some firms treat the bereaved.

Too often firms get away with it because people simply want to get through the trauma and move on. Engaging in a battle is the last thing they want.

Too often firms get away with mistreating the bereaved because they simply want to get through the trauma and move on

I know from my own experiences at this time last year how hard it is to phone again and again to say those simple words: “I’m calling because my mum has died”.

So why do some firms make it so hard, and why can they be so thoughtless in the way they respond?

This is not a universal problem. Some insurance companies appear to deal with the situation extremely well.

In the main it appears to be banks and building societies who fall down.

There are some simple ways to make life easier for the bereaved.

First have a dedicated phone number so they do not have to battle with an electronic switchboard and then guess which number to push.

Give them a named contact to deal with.

Use mature staff who can empathise with their situation and make sure they are properly trained.

When writing, address the letter to the person who called or at worse, to the executors of the person. It can be very distressing to receive a letter addressed to ‘Joe Bloggs, deceased’ or even to the dead relative.

Branches should have leaflets available explaining what is needed – it is not enough to put the information online. The whole ethos should be: how can we make this as easy as possible for you?

If the person is asked to attend a meeting then make damned sure you are on time. Halifax kept my mother-in-law waiting half an hour when her husband died. When she questioned it she was condescendingly told: “Someone will be with you in a minute, dear.”

She closed the account and has never stepped into a Halifax branch since. “Even my hairdresser does not keep me waiting half an hour,” she told me.

It all boils down to treating the bereaved with delicacy and respect – and remembering they will often not be thinking clearly so they need every bit of help you can offer.

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Tour firms fail to Greece cash wheels

As the currency crisis in Greece unfolded I watched to see how the insurance industry would respond.

Tour operators and the government were telling holidaymakers to take lots of cash because banks would be closed.

But travel insurance policies typically cover only £250 to £500 cash. It may be that people could keep money in hotel safes on arrival, but not everyone would have access to one.

So where were the reassuring words from the travel insurers offering to increase cover for the emergency?

The same tour operators who were telling holidaymakers to take wads of cash made no mention of extra travel cover. In fact Thomas Cook’s bronze level policies do not cover any cash at all.

As usual it was left to journalists to point out the glaring gap and to attempt to harry the insurers into action.

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‘Flat-rate’ state pension a flat-out lie

With just nine months to go before launch it seems there is still much confusion about the new state pension. Saga says a third of 10,000 over-50s it surveyed thought it would be more generous, a third less generous, while some did not have a clue.

I suspect some of the confusion has come from the initial description of it as a flat-rate pension. It is nothing of the sort, relying on 35 years’ national insurance contributions, with no contracting out, to produce a full pension.

It is a fairer pension, and for low earners and the self-employed it should pay more – but flat it certainly ain’t.