How We Can Achieve Better Bereavement Journeys?

By Ollie Wright Head of Financial Sector Solutions, EstateConnect

As part of the multi award winning Estatesearch group of companies – a founder of the vulnerable banking group – our team supports financial institutions with clear, reliable bereavement solutions.  At the end of May 2026, we invited experts from across the industry to a special roundtable event held in London, to discuss how the industry can work together better to achieve improved bereavement journeys for customers.  Here’s what happened.

It was a monumental day.  Two years in the making, a round table event which brought together senior leaders from regulatory parties, trade associations and charities to engage and discuss how we can work together to achieve better bereavement journeys.

At a venue in London at the end of May, we sat down and discussed the challenges, the disjointed bereavement journeys and lived experiences.  I was blown away by the by the openness, commitment and desire of all of the 24 delegates to implement positive change and to improve customer outcomes for something that will affect every single one of us at some point in our lives.

The overall result has been the creation of literally a ‘bereavement movement’ where together, our intention is now to keep up the conversation, reconvening in another six months’ time to assess progress and maintain momentum for change.

I worked closely with my colleague Andy Davies, alongside industry advocate and financial inclusion champion Johnny Timpson to create the agenda.  Andy Langford, Clinical Director of Cruse Bereavement chaired the day which started with my colleague Michael Kennelly presenting a recap of a white paper I submitted to the Treasury in January, which highlights the regulatory gap between GDPR and the FCA Principles, which deceased subjects can fall through resulting in poor outcomes in estate administration.  He presented on inconsistencies in bereavement journeys for families, legal representatives and deceased customers, and the level of service financial firms should adhere to regardless of whether customers are living or dead.

Lucy Carpenter, our next speaker from the Charity Hospice UK spoke with courage and honesty about her personal experience following the loss of her father, Rob.  It was a powerful and deeply moving account that brings into immediate focus the need for firms to approach bereavement with greater compassion.  Lucy subsequently posted about her experience on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7466050344184381442/ saying: “the one thing that unites all of us, regardless of our roles or titles, is that we will all experience grief, and we will all die. Because when we talk about “customers who have passed away” or “bereaved callers”, it’s easy for those words to become numbers, data, or transactions. But behind every one of those is a person.  A grieving family, a life and a legacy that deserves care, respect, and humanity.”

But Lucy was not alone.  As the day unfolded, some of the most senior people in room shared their own experiences too.  One talked about a bank which had issued a new cheque book in the name of their deceased family member, and another where a financial institution had actually paid out money to close accounts without following the correct estate administration process, all causing them to face additional, avoidable issues at a time when they were grieving.

From the discussion that followed, key takeaways included:

• Treating deceased people as numbers is detrimental.
• There is no neutral ground between being treated well, or not being treated well. It is one or the other.
• There is a need for more total signposting.
• There is a need for one bereavement system per financial firm to avoid departments working in silos.

During the day, we also discussed what ‘good’ should look like.  The example of Denmark where deaths are registered digitally, kicking off the entire process was cited.  Further, promoting digital first, next of kin nominations on accounts, in addition to better training for staff members were all ideas for further exploration.

I was not the only person to be inspired by the FCA, sending several delegates and showing the wide view bereavement journeys require, in addition to how seriously they are taking their approach to ensure improvements are made across the industry.  The FCA highlighted that they were there to listen and engage and they did.  The FCA’s spokespeople also underlined the recently announced multi firm review of bereavement journeys due to be completed in the autumn and published later this year, and talked in more detail about the review which was welcomed.

The FCA went on to confirm that their role is to drive standards and hold individual firms accountable. As part of the review, which is already underway, they are exploring consumer support, understanding, products and services, and price and value bringing everything back to the principle of fair treatment of customers.  Their delegates talked openly about the need to understand good practice, areas for improvement, training, how firms communicate with next of kin and monitoring outcomes, touching on different areas including life insurance claims, risks, data protection and aligning next steps with Consumer Duty.

As the day progressed it became clear what a huge, complex and sensitive topic bereavement journeys are and how many people need to be involved to be successful in driving positive change.  In subsequent discussion, there were calls for more innovation; the need for multiple regulators to be on board; the need to engage and leverage technology to solve some of the challenges; the benefits of having “bereavement advocates” and who should take ownership of progress within individual firms, in addition to the toll taken on call handlers receiving up to 1500 calls per month to support the families of deceased subjects.

However, the one point which we kept returning to was ‘who is the customer?’  Does a customer stop being a customer when they have passed away, or should they remain a customer until the assets have left a bank?  In order to improve bereavement journeys, we realised that surely, we must better define who the customer is too, because this will influence relevant solutions, communication and expectations.

There will be many more questions for next time, such as which voices should be in the room, including underrepresented groups.  However, on that day in London at the end of May, together, we all saw a real motivation for change and understand it is now all of our jobs to keep the ball rolling about this vital topic.

I was amazed by the level of seniority of the delegates in attendance and impressed by their commitment to improve approaches to duty of care.  I for one am looking forward to taking this forward and seeing the positive progress which has taken place at our next round table in six months’ time.