Gone, but not forgotten

The Bereavement Register®‘s new data supply arrangement with itc Legal Services is a timely case in point. Not only will itc Legal Services be providing the Register with fully-verified names for hundreds of thousands of deceased individuals over the next twelve months, but throughout our recent test period, 91 per cent of registrants opted-in to The Bereavement Register®. This resounding consumer acceptance and support of the Register all happened within an average time frame of under three days, what’s more.

Why is The Bereavement Register® so widely supported? On any given day, around 1,575 people die in the UK[1]. As if this reminder of our own mortality wasn’t sobering enough, this same 1,575 deceased will cumulatively receive an estimated 126,000 pieces of unsolicited mail in the twelve months following their deaths. The result? Undue distress to grieving family members and friends as well as adverse environmental impacts at a time when we’re all striving to be more eco-friendly.

Adding insult to injury, given that many items of ‘dead post’ contain personal information such as name, address and date of birth, an ever-increasing amount of post is being illegally intercepted by identity thieves. According to CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, Impersonation of the Dead (IOD) is now Britain’s fastest-growing identity crime, with upwards of 70,000 families likely to experience the pain of discovering their deceased loved one has become a victim of IOD fraud this year alone. Your use of the Register hence places you at the forefront of protecting deceaseds’ personal details and helping the environment – both of which can only but enhance your brand’s image.

Also at the front line are Donna Marshall and Victoria Maskell (pictured) the public faces of The Bereavement Register®. They personally field dozens of calls each day from family members and friends wanting to register deceaseds’ details. Along with your sterling work, that The Bereavement Register® has become the fastest, most source-verified and comprehensive deceased suppression file available in the UK is testament to the dedication and professionalism of everyone involved. It’s not for nothing that The Bereavement Register® is used to screen over 72 per cent of all direct mail in the UK and is the deceased mail service of choice amongst the majority of Britain’s funeral homes, government agencies and police constabularies.

Unlike some deceased suppression files, The Bereavement Register® assumes nothing when it comes to the delicate issue of deceased data. If the ultimate confidence indicators of any suppression file are high usage rates and public trust, then The Bereavement Register® clearly has both.

So for your help in assisting grieving relatives and friends during the difficult months following the death of a family member or friend, we thank you.

While people may be gone, we’re all helping to ensure that they’re far from forgotten.

[1] Source: ONS.