What does the Death Notification Service actually do?

itm2

I used the Death Notification Service a couple of weeks ago to notify half a dozen companies of the passing of my mother. Having not heard from any of the companies since, I decided to phone the first company (Natwest) to ask if they had been notified. They confirmed that they had, but told me that I needed to send them the Death Certificate, and recommended that I use their online bereavement notification form to do this. Whether or not they were planning to contact me to ask for this anyway is not clear. What's also not clear is why I uploaded details of the Death Certificate to the Death Notification Service if they don't actually pass it on the to the relevant organizations.

Could anyone shed some light on whether there is any point in using the Death Notification Service, if the organizations that they contact will require you to follow their own bereavement processes anyway?

Flugelhorn

I haven't come across this - "I used tell us once" who sorted council tax, nhs pension, state pension, attendance allowance, DVLA, passport office, NHS appointments  without me needing to contact them

- presume DNS is a private organisation?? relies on all these companies having signed up to them and fully agreeing to use the info that they have - can imagine that is the case. 

gettingtheresometime

itm2 said:

I used the Death Notification Service a couple of weeks ago to notify half a dozen companies of the passing of my mother. Having not heard from any of the companies since, I decided to phone the first company (Natwest) to ask if they had been notified. They confirmed that they had, but told me that I needed to send them the Death Certificate, and recommended that I use their online bereavement notification form to do this. Whether or not they were planning to contact me to ask for this anyway is not clear. What's also not clear is why I uploaded details of the Death Certificate to the Death Notification Service if they don't actually pass it on the to the relevant organizations.

Could anyone shed some light on whether there is any point in using the Death Notification Service, if the organizations that they contact will require you to follow their own bereavement processes anyway?

Well having gone through a bereavement recently, having to tell numerous organisations the same information over and over again is pretty harrowing.

I personally didn't use the 'tell me once' service but found (weirdly) that the council was the best ...once I'd been able to register the death as the registrars dept notified the council tax dept (who just wanted me to sign a form saying that I was entitled to the single person's discount) and the electoral roll dept (who automatically took the name off the electoral roll register)

sheramber

https://www.deathnotificationservice.co.uk/

To allow us to complete the validation checks that are required, the Death Notification Service will send the notifications to the financial institutions in the following timescales

.............................


Please note that if a bank holiday occurs these timescales will be moved on by one day

You will be contacted by the financial institutions within 10 working days after you submit the notification to let you know what the next steps are, which may include them asking for a copy of the death certificate.

Had it been 10 working days?

itm2

sheramber said:

https://www.deathnotificationservice.co.uk/

To allow us to complete the validation checks that are required, the Death Notification Service will send the notifications to the financial institutions in the following timescales

.............................


Please note that if a bank holiday occurs these timescales will be moved on by one day

You will be contacted by the financial institutions within 10 working days after you submit the notification to let you know what the next steps are, which may include them asking for a copy of the death certificate.

Had it been 10 working days?

No, it hadn't been 10 working days, but Natwest confirmed that they'd received notification from them but still needed me to send them the death cert and follow their normal online process. So from Natwest's perspective my use of the service seems to have been pointless ?

sheramber

But the website states  the financial institution will contact you to tell you what the next step is which may include them asking for a copy of the death certificate.

All the notification service achieves is saving you having to notify of the death which some people find very difficult to do.