Direct Line chasing me over useless uncle’s cancelled automotive insurance coverage

My uncle (RC) died final 12 months and I’m his executor. After I checked his put up I used to be stunned to discover a invoice from Direct Line addressed to the “executor of RC” stating a “remaining cost of £148 is overdue” for his cancelled automotive insurance coverage. This was information to me as my uncle didn’t personal a automotive.

I used to be upset by this and contacted the insurer to recommend that it owed us cash, not the opposite approach spherical. The £670 coverage on his Hyundai i30 had auto-renewed in September 2023 however he had disposed of the automotive two months later and died in Could 2024.

Even when my uncle, who was in his late 80s and had been unwell, nonetheless had the automotive, I can’t perceive how an insurance coverage firm thinks it cheap to request cash from an executor. Other than the shortage of tact, it ought to have been alerted by the closed checking account.

SE, London

Previously 12 months you’ve gotten been tasked with tying up two estates after the demise of your father and uncle, and the paperwork has been overwhelming. This was the ultimate straw. Each organisation has a distinct course of, you say, and whereas some need to take care of “sadmin” on-line, others demand bodily paperwork. By the point this demand arrived you’d had sufficient.

After I contacted Direct Line it moved rapidly to make issues proper. It refunded the £700 for the earlier 12 months’s coverage and in addition awarded your loved ones £200 compensation as a result of its “service fell beneath our anticipated requirements”.

Direct Line mentioned: “We’ve got a devoted bereavement workforce supporting clients; nevertheless, on this event the right process for cancelling SE’s uncle’s coverage was not adopted. We’ve got supplied our honest apologies to SE, confirmed the coverage has been cancelled and the fees waived.”

This was not concerning the cash; you need firms to do a greater job of serving to the bereaved. “How many individuals are in the identical state of affairs as me?” you marvel.

We welcome letters however can not reply individually. E-mail us at shopper.champions@theguardian.com or write to Client Champions, Cash, the Guardian, 90 York Method, London N1 9GU. Please embody a daytime telephone quantity. Submission and publication of all letters is topic to our phrases and circumstances.