Insurer red-faced over billing dead man

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, March 12 (UPI) -- A Canadian insurance company says a computer error was behind a bill sent to a Toronto-area man who had been dead for almost a month.

Jeff Menary, 51, died Feb. 16 of cancer in Mississauga, an adjacent city west of Toronto. Weeks after, as his sister Ellen Anderson was working at closing his estate, a bill arrived for Menary's car insurance with the Co-operators Group insurance company.

Anderson told the Toronto Star she was shocked and hurt by the way the letter began.

"This letter is to advise you that your payment for March 1st, 2008, was returned to us by your bank or financial institution due to 'PAYOR DECEASED,'" the letter opens. "It is important that we receive payment prior to March 20th, 2008, as this will ensure that your insurance coverage is continued."

Leonard Sharman, a spokesman for the company based in Guelph, Ontario, told the Star the policy has been canceled.

"Obviously no family should have to go through that," he said, adding that no human being saw or handled the letter before it was sent out as part of an automated system now under review.