By Chris Baigent-Reed, Managing Director, Jigsaw Tree

Many financial advisers will have experienced a particular kind of client conversation. A call from a close family member, next of kin or executor to tell you a client has died. What happens in the next few minutes and over the months that follow, is something that family will remember long after the estate is settled.

That was the starting point for Handled with Care, the webinar I ran with Mel Holman of Compliance and Training Solutions (CATS) on modernising the bereavement journey under Consumer Duty. The conversation was honest, practical and, at times, quite personal. And the message was clear: good intentions are no longer enough. Firms need a process they can evidence.

Why bereavement is now firmly on the FCA’s radar

In May 2026 the FCA launched a review of how consumer investment firms support bereaved customers. It covers advisers, platforms and wealth managers and follows the whole journey, from the moment a firm is told about a death to settlement or transfer of the investments. The regulator is looking at four things: how firms communicate, how they support vulnerable customers, their service standards and how fees are handled on bereaved accounts.

The research behind it makes uncomfortable reading. Fewer than half of bereaved customers (47%) felt they got the support they needed from financial firms. The FCA wants processes built around “people, not paperwork” and has described bereavement handling as a real test of a firm’s culture.

We also know what it is likely to find, because it has been here before. Its earlier review of banks and building societies, along with similar work in insurance, found families facing unclear processes, being asked for the same information again and again and waiting through avoidable delays. Good practice existed, but it wasn’t consistent. The findings for our sector are expected to be published shortly, with examples of good and poor practice.

Two more things make this urgent for advice firms:

• Fees after death. The FCA has already stepped in to stop firms charging ongoing advice fees for deceased clients while their estates were being administered. The advice contract ends on death.
• Vulnerability is rarely disclosed. The FCA’s own research found that only around four in ten consumers with characteristics of vulnerability tell their providers. Bereaved families are very likely to be vulnerable, so waiting for them to say so is not a strategy.

What stood out from the session

We kept landing on the same six principles:

1. Ask for nothing on the first call. Listen, record who called and explain what happens next. Documents can be requested later, once and in writing.
2. One named point of contact. The family should have one person for the life of the case and never be passed between teams.
3. One list of requirements, asked for once. Nobody should have to repeat sensitive information or send the same document twice.
4. Assume vulnerability. Record it for the surviving client or the person who called and add a critical note so everyone in the firm understands the context.
5. Be clear and consistent on fees. Stop ongoing adviser charges from the date of death and explain the fee position plainly in writing.
6. Keep families updated, even when you’re waiting on providers. Silence feels like neglect. We suggest an update at least every 10 working days or at each provider milestone.

None of this is complicated. The challenge is doing it every time, whoever picks up the phone.

Turning good intentions into a process you can evidence

This is where I think many firms have a gap. Most advisers genuinely care about doing this well. But when the process lives in someone’s head, or in a Word document nobody opens, every case is handled slightly differently. That is exactly what the FCA has flagged elsewhere.

The answer is to build bereavement into your practice management system as a proper workflow. Whether you use Intelliflo, Plannr, Iress Xplan or Curo, you can set up a “Client Death” workflow template once and every case then runs the same way. Each task has an owner, a timescale and clear instructions sitting inside the system. Provider notification is flagged as high importance, with a target of five working days from receiving the death certificate. The two points where cases tend to drift, waiting for the family’s documents and waiting for providers, become open tasks with a named owner rather than gaps in the file.

The real bonus is reporting. Once every case runs through the same steps, you can track the time from notification to settlement, how often families were updated and how many provider service levels were missed. That is your evidence of good outcomes under Consumer Duty, and it is far more convincing than a policy document.

Get ready for April 2027

There is one more reason to act now. From 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and death benefits will come within inheritance tax, with personal representatives taking on responsibility for identifying pensions and paying any tax due. For advice firms, that means more pensions to trace, more valuations to chase and longer, more complex cases. Providers are already expanding their bereavement teams.

It is worth building pension-specific steps into your workflow now: tracing every arrangement, getting valuations for each scheme and tracking IHT deadlines. And while clients are still with you, use reviews to find those forgotten and legacy pensions.

So we’ve turned it into something practical

Mel and I have pulled everything from the session into a free guide, Handled with Care: The Bereavement Process. It includes:

• A 20-step process map, from first notification to case closure
• A step-by-step workflow to build in your practice management system
• What to include in your condolence and summary of holdings letters
• An implementation checklist for your team

We have created  a bereavement guide to help you through this. Please click here Book a discovery call – Jigsaw Tree and put ‘Send me a bereavement guide’ in your enquiry. This will then be sent to your inbox.

If you would also like help putting it into practice, Jigsaw Tree can map your process, build the workflow and templates in your system and train your team to one best way of working.

Further reading

• FCA: reviewing whether investment firms are doing enough to support bereaved customers
• FCA findings on banks’ treatment of bereaved customers and power of attorney (Regulation Tomorrow)
• Farrer & Co: bereavement practices of wealth managers under the Consumer Duty spotlight
• RSM: what’s changing to inheritance tax on pensions from April 2027