Lodge Brothers are the first in the industry to proactively screen their member database to ensure they are not holding member funds for pre-paid funerals that that have already been conducted and if this was the case, they have undertaken detailed research to locate the next of kin and repay them any monies still held in Trust.

Lodge Brothers have enlisted industry specialists Heirtrace Limited, to conduct this exercise on their behalf. This involved seeking up-to-date address and personal details for members.  A number of deaths of members, unbeknown to Lodge Brothers, were identified during the work conducted by Heirtrace.

Mike Lodge of Lodge Brothers states, “We have a moral obligation to do the best by our clients and their loved ones.  If a prepaid funeral scheme member has died and we have not conducted the funeral then we have a duty to reimburse those funds to their heirs.”

As a company which prides itself with reunifying people with assets, and with specific expertise with identifying the legal heirs to assets, Heirtrace were more than happy to assist Lodge Brothers in their efforts. “Heirtrace takes a personal interest in uniting people with assets that rightfully belong to them” says Danielle Higgins, Managing Director, “we are impressed by the initiative taken by Lodge Brothers who have shown true commitment to their customers, by tackling this prominent issue head on.”

To date Lodge Brothers and Heirtrace have reunited four policy funds with their rightful owners and this works continues. It is hoped by the results of the work carried out by Lodge Brothers and Heirtrace that it may spur on other Funeral Pre Payment firms to conduct similar exercises to raise the standards across the industry.

Notes to editor

1. Heirtrace, who are based near Norwich are leaders in providing pro-active search services to Lawyers, financial institutions and pension funds to reunite assets with owners/heirs.

2. Heirtrace’s key strategy is to utilise individual intelligence and advanced technology to achieve an exceptionally high level of success for its customers.

3. Seven generations of the Lodge family have been helping and advising local families in their time of need. Today the business is run by six members of the Lodge family (Robert, Andrew, Beverley, Michael, Janet and Christopher).

4. Lodge Brothers offer a range of Guaranteed Pre-Arrangement & Pre-Payment Funeral Plans and because they are paid at today’s prices, funeral plans guarantee a fixed cost funeral service that will not be changed by future price increases or inflation

5. For further information please contact either :

Danielle Higgins, Managing Director on 01603 813366, or Danielle.higgins@heirtrace.co.uk or visit www.heirtrace.co.uk

Sara Matthews, Marketing Manager on 020 8224 3493 or saramatthews@lodgebrothers.co.uk or visit www.lodgebrothers.co.uk

END

Finding missing beneficiaries mentioned in a Will or identifying entitled relatives in the case of an intestate estate can be a difficult task. Solicitors conducting their own research or trusting research carried out by family members leave themselves exposed to a multitude of potential problems. We live in a culture of extended families, family members can be scattered across the country and, in an increasing number of cases, across the globe. There is an ever increasing chance of family members ‘going off the radar’, losing contact with close family or old friends.  Family members who produce family trees, whilst perhaps amateur genealogists with a keen interest in family history, are sometimes prone to errors.

The role of Executor or Personal Representative is one that brings with it large amounts of responsibility. Failure to properly administer assets or estates to all entitled beneficiaries carries with it the risk of legal action. This would be the case where it has not been possible to ascertain the whereabouts of, or properly identify, certain beneficiaries. In addition, if no reserve has been made for them out of the estate, and it is no longer possible to obtain reimbursement of monies paid to ascertained beneficiaries, excluded entitled beneficiaries could look to the Executor or Personal Representative as a source of recompense.

The Easy Way Out?

Many solicitors see Missing Beneficiary Indemnity Insurance as the quickest solution to their problematic probate case.  Whilst at first glance it can be seen as viable protection against potential law suits or professional negligence claims, Indemnity Insurance carries with it a risk of not being wholly cost efficient. The cost of Indemnity Insurance is calculated as a percentage of the estate’s value or the missing beneficiary’s share of the estate. For example, if Missing Beneficiary Indemnity Insurance was priced at 1½% of an estate’s value, with the average price of a UK home now standing at just under £170,000, this would mean the price of obtaining Indemnity Insurance would be £2,550.

The Heirtrace Solution

Hiring the services of professional genealogists like Heirtrace Limited can not only offset the sense of professional risk for a solicitor administering an Estate, it also offers a more cost efficient alternative when compared against Missing Beneficiary Indemnity Insurance. Heirtrace can locate a missing beneficiary from as little as £100 with the price of an average intestacy case requiring 10 hours research costing as little as £1,000.  This includes high quality research  with all entitled beneficiaries located* together with a detailed report listing those beneficiaries and their relationship to the deceased, signed verification forms from each entitled relative confirming their relationship, and a detailed family tree illustrating how each beneficiary is related.

Setting Yourself Apart From The Others

The ABS is undoubtedly going to claim the lives of some solicitors’ firms: those who are mediocre in their levels of client service; those who do not keep up to speed on how external experts can add value to their proposition; and those who do not appreciate the value of providing “best in field” service to clients leading to recommendations and repeat business.

Is ABS the perfect incentive to re-evaluate your processes and identify where you can provide your clients with a service which is not only the best value for money but extends upon your professional reputation.  To find out how Heirtrace can work with you to achieve this, please contact Samantha Kimber on Samantha.kimber@heirtrace.co.uk or 01603 8133666.

* our success rate where all entitled beneficiaries are located and verified stands at 97%

The story plots the history of why these types of policies become forgotten about in the first place, how LV= are taking a proactive approach to ensure that all monies in policies belonging to people who are now deceased are being reunited with their legal heirs and how this results in their families, a number of years later, being delighted to receive funds.

Heirtrace, who specialise in locating the heirs and beneficiaries of the deceased, are featured undertaking the necessary research for LV= to determine who the legal beneficiaries are and locating them in their current address.

The programme is available to view on the BBC I Player.

Mike Eve, Chairman at Heirtrace commented “ I am delighted that Danielle Higgins and Sarah Jones have taken up these appointments.

Danielle Higgins has wide ranging experience of the unclaimed assets and dormant account issues that face the financial services sector. Danielle has successfully built up the Heirtrace team and client base and has placed Heirtrace in a leading position to provide innovative solutions to the issues that are being faced.”

“Sarah Jones has extensive Operations Management experience within the financial service sector and since joining Heirtrace, Sarah has successfully implemented a unique asset reunification management system, and has developed unique services tailored to the varying needs of the sector.”

Although hard to believe, many people forget about money that is stored in bank accounts, pension funds, ISAs and other saving instruments. Until very recently the financial institution instructed to hold this money was under no obligation to find the person to whom the money belongs, should it have remained untouched for a number of years.

The Dormant Bank and Building Society Act, brought into force at the end of 2008, has changed this. It is now the case that if an asset has been left untouched for 15 years or more, the bank or building society holding the money is strongly encouraged to locate the person to whom it belongs, so that the money can be returned. In instances where the money remains unclaimed, a Central Reclaim fund has been set up, to direct these funds towards charitable projects.

The demand to trace these customers or their heirs and beneficiaries (in cases when the original customer is deceased) has therefore grown exponentially in the last six months and Heirtrace, who offer people tracing for asset reunification purposes, has been assisting many of these large financial institutions to deal with this issue.

In our work with the financial service sector, lawyers and pension funds, we always work to pre agreed fixed fees, which are reflective of the time and skill required to resolve an individual case, these fees are normally only chargeable upon success. When we work with the legal sector our fee is always paid from the estate as a whole, so is shared evenly between all of the beneficiaries.

Our clients are fully aware of the size of the asset to be reunified with the heirs and beneficiaries and are therefore able to make a conscious decision, in advance, on whether our fees are fair and reasonable relative to the asset, so we do not discourage our clients from passing on our tracing fee to the beneficiaries.

However most of our large financial service industry clients choose to pay for the cost of tracing the heirs and beneficiaries out of their business expenditure as a gesture of goodwill to their customers. This means that the beneficiaries receive the entire asset they are entitled too, without any tracing cost deductions.

We support the view of Title Research that Probate Genealogists fees should be fair and proportionate to the work involved and not the value of the asset to be distributed, and we demonstrate this by not insisting on knowing the value of the asset to be distributed before we begin work on tracing the heirs and beneficiaries.

Danielle Higgins
Managing Director

BBC1 9.15am Tuesday, 30th June, 2009. Heir Hunters: The Vera Gissing Story.

Gustav Kestner was a prominent lawyer in Prague before the war and perished in the Holocaust, The film tells how Heirtrace Research Director, Derek Rodbard, acting on instructions from lawyers in Tel Aviv, traced his two nieces Vera and Eva, who arrived at Liverpool Street station in 1939 on the children’s transports. Heirtrace and the lawyers work together to reunite the two sisters with £23,000 each, from an insurance policy in their Uncle Gustav’s name.

BBC1

BBC1 9.15am Tuesday, 21st July, 2009. Heir Hunters: The Otto Hornung Story.

Otto Hornung is a great character with an incredible story to tell. His father, also a lawyer, and the family lived in Ostrava in Czechoslovakia in 1939. This area was annexed before the war started and his father escaped to Poland, but was later caught by the Germans and shot. Heirtrace found Otto in Wembley, and is currently arranging for the return of his father’s assets.

These films, although set in the most terrible times of the 20th Century, bring the human side of these events into focus, and we hope that you enjoy them.

The Dormant Bank and Building Society Act, brought into force at the end of 2008, has changed this. It is now the case that if an asset has been left untouched for 15 years or more, the bank or building society holding the money is strongly encouraged to locate the person to whom it belongs, so that the money can be returned. In instances where the money remains unclaimed, a Central Reclaim fund has been set up, to direct these funds towards charitable projects.

The demand to trace these customers or their heirs and beneficiaries (in cases when the original customer is deceased) has therefore grown exponentially in the last six months and Heirtrace, who offer people tracing for asset reunification purposes, has been assisting many of these large financial institutions to deal with this issue.

As a result, Heirtrace has undergone rapid expansion to manage the increased demand, taking on new skilled researchers to add to the expanding team and relocating to new larger premises just outside Norwich City Centre.

The company, which specialises particularly in the field of heir and beneficiary tracing is set for continued growth in 2009 and will be seeking to expand the research team further still, to manage the increased requirements from the financial services industry.

Lord Newby opened by welcoming the governments proposals and a number of the Bills features, but went on to raise a number of issues, the first of which was the importance of trying to reunite assets with their owners before the assets reach the fund.

“It is much better for the owners of the assets to use them as they wish rather than for
someone else, whether it is the Big Lottery Fund or anyone else, to use them on their behalf. One interesting issue is what scope there is for reuniting people with their assets. According to evidence that I have seen from an organisation called Heirtrace, some 80 per cent of currently dormant assets can be reunited with their owners if sufficient effort is put into it. …….. Although that figure seems high, even if it is only 50 per cent it would be worth making a considerable effort to try to reunite people with their assets or to ensure, as the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition is at pains to point out, that assets which may be dormant at the time of someone’s death and might be allocated to a charity can find their way to the charity specified in the will.”

For a full hansard transcript of Lord Newbys statement and the remainder of the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill debate visit parliament.uk

 His last executive position was as Deputy Chief Executive of NFU Mutual from which he retired in 2006.  Bob had previously held senior management positions in companies which merged to form Aviva plc.  He has also been involved in the development of the insurance industry having held committee and non-executive positions the Association of British Insurers, the General Insurance Standards Council and the Insurance Ombudsman Bureau (now part of the Financial Ombudsman Service).  

Mike Eve, Chairman of Heirtrace said “We are delighted that Bob has committed himself to working with us as this will bring extensive financial services experience to our role as an initiator of a new attitude to the solution of the problem of undistributed assets”. Bob Newton said “I am very enthusiastic to support Heirtrace in its core business of ensuring that undistributed assets get to their rightful owners so as to ensure their availability to those who should benefit and also help improve the public image of the financial services sector.” Notes to editor 

Heirtrace is a leader in providing pro-active search services to Lawyers, financial institutions and pension funds to reunite assets with owners/heirs. It also provides services to membership organisations, schools and universities. Its subsidiary company, UK People Finder, provides search services to personal clients via its website ukpeoplefinder.co.uk. Its key strategy is to utilise individual intelligence and advanced technology to achieve an exceptionally high level of success for its customers. 

For further information please contact: 

Michael Eve, Chairman on 07714 329136 or Danielle Zitman, Director of Marketing on 01638 663936, or Danielle@heirtrace.co.uk or visit www.heirtrace.co.uk