Getting the money out of a life assurance policy

[ŁadnaPogoda]

My Mum had a policy with Aviva that pays out on her death. I’ve started doing the paperwork, and it seems never ending. Most of her bank accounts and investments just required the grant of probate, but this one has asked for:

Grant of probate
Notarised copy of the will
A copy of my bank statement from within the past six months showing a minimum of five days of active transactions
My ID

The form I have to send back also requires the signature of my mother’s siblings. She has one brother left and he is not a beneficiary of the will. The form says “the payment request form should be signed by all the living siblings with a common bank details for the payment.” I have called Aviva and they are adamant that her brother needs to sign and have told me that they won’t pay out unless the form has his signature. It won’t be a problem getting his signature, but I don’t see why he needs to sign something that has nothing to do with him?

@Hadalifeonce I gave up with Skipton (my Mum had bits of money everywhere). Fortunately as she only had £20 in there I felt this was worth leaving there rather than dealing with the hassle.

Unfortunately, MiL had about £30K! FiL was getting so distressed by the whole thing, he did actually think about telling them to keep it.
They were so smug, they actually told me I would have to go through the same process with NS&I, it felt really great to reply, that NS&I obviously understood the process as we had had no problem with them releasing funds to the executor.

aviva were a nightmare when my FIL died. Twice MiL was told she’d have to “pop him on the phone to confirm a few details”. I ended up taking over the call and asking bluntly which part of dead was the call handler not understanding. It took over a month to sort despite being a very simple estate

Why are there so many different processes these companies follow? Most were fairly simple, send a death certificate, copy of the will, to show the executor, the executor bank details. Done...
I can understand when it involves a complex estate, but if it's fairly simple, just liquidating assets to a named executor why????

It’s been paid!!!!! And £7000 more than I was expecting (so a larger tax bill). Just very relieved that this has been sorted at last.

@Hadalifeonce the only difficulty I had with NS&I was having to open an executor’s account to have the premium bond winnings paid into. They happily paid the bond and premium bonds into my personal account, it was just the (tiny) winnings that needed to go into an executor’s account.

Finally. Relieved for you @ŁadnaPogoda