DYING isn’t as easy as it used to be. Today we live more complex lives and with that comes a more complex (administrative) afterlife. According to the NSW Minister for Customer Service, when someone dies up to forty government and private organisations need to be notified.
There are so many different services and memberships that must be notified when someone dies such as telephone, internet and energy companies, clubs (RSL clubs for example), government departments, banks, insurance companies and online accounts such as email accounts or social media accounts like Facebook or online betting accounts.
To relieve some of the stress and time it takes to notify these organisations the Australian Death Notification Service (ADNS) has been developed.
The ADNS is a free online service that allows families to notify organisations all from the one website. A family member will need the death certificate of their deceased to notify banks, phone companies or energy and water companies all on the same online location.
The NSW Minister for Customer Service said in a media release on 30 August 2020 that the service will save Australian families up to 30 hours by allowing them to securely notify several organisations at the same time.
At the time of writing there are fourteen participating organisations, seven of which are banks.
Although this is as yet well short of the forty organisations that need to be notified it is good to see most of Australia’s largest banks have joined the service considering the aftermath of the Banking Royal Commission found that the Commonwealth Bank continued to charge dead clients for financial advice.
The ADNS is a joint initiative of Australian state and territories, delivered and overseen by the NSW Government it can be accessed at https://deathnotification.gov.au/
