Direct Line chasing me over dead uncle’s cancelled car insurance

My uncle (RC) died last year and I’m his executor. When I checked his post I was surprised to find a bill from Direct Line addressed to the “executor of RC” stating a “final payment of £148 is overdue” for his cancelled car insurance. This was news to me as my uncle didn’t own a car.

I was upset by this and contacted the insurer to suggest that it owed us money, not the other way round. The £670 policy on his Hyundai i30 had auto-renewed in September 2023 but he had disposed of the car two months later and died in May 2024.

Even if my uncle, who was in his late 80s and had been unwell, still had the car, I can’t understand how an insurance company thinks it reasonable to request money from an executor. Apart from the lack of tact, it should have been alerted by the closed bank account.

SE, London

In the past year you have been tasked with tying up two estates after the death of your father and uncle, and the bureaucracy has been overwhelming. This was the final straw. Every organisation has a different process, you say, and while some want to deal with “sadmin” online, others demand physical documents. By the time this demand arrived you’d had enough.

After I contacted Direct Line it moved quickly to make things right. It refunded the £700 for the previous year’s policy and also awarded your family £200 compensation because its “service fell below our expected standards”.

Direct Line said: “We have a dedicated bereavement team supporting customers; however, on this occasion the correct procedure for cancelling SE’s uncle’s policy was not followed. We have offered our sincere apologies to SE, confirmed the policy has been cancelled and the charges waived.”

This was not about the money; you want companies to do a better job of helping the bereaved. “How many people are in the same situation as me?” you wonder.

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