Give me back my identity

My name is Burns - Christine Burns.

That's the name on my birth certificate, my passport, my driving licence, my national insurance card, my bank accounts, my mortgage. It's who I am.

But some organisations want to deny me my identity.

Sorry, that sounds like paranoid rambling or the plot of a second-rate novel. I'll explain. 25 years ago, I got married and my name was automatically changed. Everybody called me Mrs Ryan. Banks, building societies, the DSS, all changed my name on their files. All I had to do was sign my new name on the marriage register.

When our marriage ended after 11 years, I decided to revert to my maiden name. But, whereas becoming part of the goods and chattels of someone else had taken absolutely no effort on my part, getting my own name back was a different story. I had to change my name by deed poll. And I had to send my change of name deed - along with my birth certificate, my marriage certificate and my decree absolute - to every organisation I dealt with.

Most of those organisations managed to change their files eventually. There's the odd annoyance, like the fact that Virgin Media still refuse to change the name on my account even though I've sent them copies of the change of name deed on several occasions. That's fine - when they call trying to sell me a more expensive package I tell them quite truthfully, "There's nobody of that name here".

But one company is causing me serious strife, and costing me money. I have an endowment policy that has now matured. 12 years ago, after several weeks of daily telephone calls, sending several copies of the change of name deed, then finally sending the original deed, I was satisfied that the insurance company had updated their records.

However, Winterthur Life refuse to believe I am who I am. They say they have no record of my change of name. They wouldn't accept a copy of the change of name deed so, because I no longer have the original (I'm pretty sure it's in a file in their office somewhere), I've had to CHANGE MY NAME BY DEED POLL AGAIN!!!

They want the original of my new change of name deed but they're not getting it. I've sent them a certified copy, along with a certified copy of my decree absolute - my solicitor says that should be sufficient.

The policy matured in December. It's now April and I'm still wrangling with them. The whole thing sucks.