Life Insurance still in joint names

barloo69

I am after some advice, preferably from a life insurance guru. Im an u/w myself but in a completely different field, however I have a slant on what I think should happen & I just want to make sure Im correct.

My story is this, about 6 years ago, me & my then girlfriend bought a house together. With this we bought a life Insurance joint policy which was in both our names.

About 3 years ago, me & my girlfriend split up and I end up buying her out of the house. Once this transaction has been completed. I send a letter to my Life Insurers advising them of what has happened and therefore she is to be removed from the policy.

I dont know if this was naive of me, but I then filed away my papers and didnt give the matter another thought.

Anyway, recently I was doing a clean out of old paperwork when I discovered my Life policy which still had my Ex's details on it. I then remembered that I sent them a letter but didnt recall receiving a response/confirmation/updated documents from them.

I then become curious and phone my Life Insurer and after going through a process of pressing umpteen buttons for this and that, and explaining my situation to 3 different departments (god, am I glad I left this Insurance market) I eventually ascertain that the policy is still in both mine and my ex's name and that they hadnt recd my letter (more like it got lost in the numerous mergers/office closedowns/clerical work shipped to another country that this company has gone through)

My query is this. I have been paying for the last 3 years, a monthly insurance premium which is based on 2 persons and obviously this should just be the 1. Am I therefore legally entitled to a calculated refund based on what the premiums shouldve been over this period for 1 person ?

Logic and reason suggests that I may be, but hey this IS the Insurance industry.

Any thoughts...................... Thanks.

somewhatnew

The first thing I would ask is does your insurance contract have a seperation clause on it so the policy can be divided into seperate single policies? It is a feature of some contracts but not many. The letter would need to have been signed by the both of you to enact this. Did your ex sign the letter as well?

If your policy had this option and you both signed the letter then you may get somewhere.

I say may get somewhere because unless you can prove it you probably will have no option but to grin and bear the loss of the extra premiums. Is it your word against theirs you sent this letter?

Your other option is to get on the phone to the call centre and give them all sorts of grief until you get your way.

Best of luck