Is this really Pearl's policy ?

dunstonh

So your advice is to work on the assumption that nobody picking up a phone on behalf of Pearl is anything other than a short term, disinterested malcontent call centre employee and as such everything everyone at Pearl has so far advised us to do within a telephone conversation should be ignored.

Basically yes.

Pearl has not asked who the executor of my father's estate is... Pearl has sent a letter asking us to provide them with an original death certificate, original policy dicuments, and the return of all monies paid to my late father since his death.

Do you suggest, because this is not the claim form that the call centre malcontent advised that we would be receiving, that we ignore the letter completely?

They do have a death claims form, although thinking about it, the annuity has no value to be paid out so in theory, notification and death certificate would be sufficient.

A bank certainly will NOT discuss, let alone action a change to any bank account over the telephone without satisfying itself that the person they are talking to is the account holder. The first thing a bank will ask for is an account number and if the caller cannot furnish the correct account number the call will terminate.

I used to work in a bank, albeit a long time ago, and the principle then when sending money somewhere was if in doubt with an instruction, dont send it because it can always be sent later. It may turn out to be impossible to get the money back if wrong.

A Pearl call centre emplyee cancelled payment on 3 pension policies on the strength of a caller having the Name, address and date of birth of a policy holder... policy numbers were not required.

That is acceptable.

Why would they have sent a letter rather than a claim form?

As mentioned above, I believe its because the annuity has no value to be paid. Most of the points on the claim form refer to where the funds need to go, who the executor is, probate etc. None of that would apply here unless the annuity was in a guarantee period.

Yes as I mention above, Pearl has written asking that all payments made after my father's death be returned. Pearl does not tell us of any specific payments that have been made or whether any payments were made in advance or in arrears.

Would you suggest that Pearl is taking another 'business risk' in attempting to have funds paid to it that may not be owed?

I didnt realise they had written to you. I thought it had been telephone only based on your comments made in the ealier posts. Many of Pearls letters are standard text and its likely that is what you have got. You can usually tell by looking at the signature on the letter. If its a computer generated signature, its standard, if its a real signature then its dictated letter. Most standard letters dont have much detail on values etc.

A bit of luck, an open market option one of my employees is doing is from Pearl and the figures arrived yesterday. I havent given them to him yet as it was Saturday. Reading through it, the Pearl annuity option doenst give the choice or advance or arrears and all their options show it payable in advance. I've looked back on older OMOs and each one shows advance and not arrears. Its possible that they only do monthly in advance.

It was the telephone number given on that letter that suggested to me that when I telephoned Pearl to discuss its contents I was not talking to a call centre emplyee.

0870 897 0028?

I just made a claim on a funeral expenses policy ....and they took about 6 weeks to pay out!!!! i had to find the funeral money from other sources until the money came through!!!! and silly me was thinking that a funeral expenses policy should pay out in time to pay for the funeral!!

Last life policy claim I was involved from Pearl was around 10 days but there was a will and the policy was in trust which speeds things up big time. If the plan wasnt in trust, it would slow it down. If there wasnt a will, it would slow it even more and obtaining probate can slow it down more so.

mr.mandrake

dunstonh, thanks for your interest in this situation.

Pearl sent a signed non-standard letter asking for Sight of original death certificate, the return of all original policy documents and return of all monies paid by Pearl since my father's death. Why would it send a letter rather than the claim form it promised?

Why would Pearl ask us to return the original policy documents and why isn't Pearl informing us of the specific payment amounts it has made since my father's death along with specific amounts it believes should be returned.

All payments made by Pearl were to my father - in his name only, why would Pearl assume anyone else would have legal access to my father's finances?

Why hasn't Pearl asked for the name of the executor?

Pearl will stop any pension payments at the drop of a hat, without due diligence. Pearl has a legal contractual obligation to make pension payments completely and on time, why would they stop payments without first attempting to make contact with the recipient? Pearl hides behind and uses the Data Protection Act to suit itself, not to protect its customers.

Pearl will make a vague request for the return of original policy documents to save itself money and effort.

Pearl will make a vague request for the return of all payments, without first bothering itself to establish which payments are due to be returned. More than once we have been advised that ALL payments to my father were made in advance - this is simply not the case, so why would any Pearl employee take it upon themself to lie, unless they have been instructed to do so?

I can only assume Pearl is being disingenuous in the most part and outright dishonest in at least one aspect of its dealings with us.

I am begining to wonder if Pearl has incomplete records regarding the terms of my late father's policies.

EdInvestor

I am begining to wonder if Pearl has incomplete records regarding the terms of my late father's policies.

This would be normal.Insurers destroyed most documents at the time of the introduction of the DPA. This is a major reason why so many endowment misselling claims have been successful - they have no documents to defend their case, even if they have a case in the first place.

dunstonh

Pearl sent a signed non-standard letter asking for Sight of original death certificate, the return of all original policy documents and return of all monies paid by Pearl since my father's death. Why would it send a letter rather than the claim form it promised?

It was easy to initially think that a claim form would be necessary and if the annuity was in the guarantee period, then it would be. However, as I mentioned, after consideration, a claim form wouldnt be necessary as there is no value in this plan to be paid out.

Why would Pearl ask us to return the original policy documents and why isn't Pearl informing us of the specific payment amounts it has made since my father's death along with specific amounts it believes should be returned.

Pearl nearly always ask for the policy details back (as do a [decreasing] number of insurers). As for amounts, I'm guessing they will not put a request in for a specific amount until the get sight of the death certificate.

All payments made by Pearl were to my father - in his name only, why would Pearl assume anyone else would have legal access to my father's finances?

Power of attorney may have existed they were not aware about.

Why hasn't Pearl asked for the name of the executor?

Linked with what I said earlier, with no value in the plan, notification and confirmation is all that is required.

Pearl will stop any pension payments at the drop of a hat, without due diligence. Pearl has a legal contractual obligation to make pension payments completely and on time, why would they stop payments without first attempting to make contact with the recipient? Pearl hides behind and uses the Data Protection Act to suit itself, not to protect its customers.

That works both ways. They have a duty to act on information provided.

Pearl will make a vague request for the return of original policy documents to save itself money and effort.

No. They have always requested them and policy documents are a legal document. Whilst many do not treat them that way nowadays, Pearl are technically correct in asking for them back. Most have stopped asking for them back to save money. Pearl havent and it must cost them more in admin.

Pearl will make a vague request for the return of all payments, without first bothering itself to establish which payments are due to be returned.

They have asked for the money back that was paid after death. I think you are reading too much into the point that they havent quoted an amount. It isnt an issue that I would give a second thought to.

More than once we have been advised that ALL payments to my father were made in advance - this is simply not the case, so why would any Pearl employee take it upon themself to lie, unless they have been instructed to do so?

As I said in the above post, Pearl appear to issue most of the annuities with payment in advance. If you have evidence to the opposite, you should present that to Pearl. Of course, the policy document would confirm that.

Whilst their skill and knowledge is limited, they certainly have not been instructed to lie. The call centre staff have very limited information on the screeen and you could be pushing them for info that they just havent got available to them.

I can only assume Pearl is being disingenuous in the most part and outright dishonest in at least one aspect of its dealings with us.

I doubt it. The amount involved is likely to be very small and the cost of admin dealing with you makes it uneconomic to do what you suggest.

This would be normal.Insurers destroyed most documents at the time of the introduction of the DPA. This is a major reason why so many endowment misselling claims have been successful - they have no documents to defend their case, even if they have a case in the first place.

Advice files are a lot different to servicing files. Documentation may have been destroyed but the information would have been input onto computer first. Human error could result in something being mistyped. This is why policy documents are so important.

To be honest mr.mandrake, I think you are reading far too much into this and looking for problems rather than just letting it go with the flow. Send the death certificate in and send the policy documents in. If you want, take a copy of the policy document first for your own record. If the policy document says arrears and not advance then point it out to them. If they have it wrong, they will correct it. If the policy document says advance and they say advance then its odds on that it is in advance. If you dont want to send them any money to begin with they will soon confirm that amount after they have received confimation of date of death.

mr.mandrake

dunstonh wrote:

To be honest mr.mandrake, I think you are reading far too much into this and looking for problems rather than just letting it go with the flow. Send the death certificate in and send the policy documents in. If you want, take a copy of the policy document first for your own record. If the policy document says arrears and not advance then point it out to them. If they have it wrong, they will correct it. If the policy document says advance and they say advance then its odds on that it is in advance. If you dont want to send them any money to begin with they will soon confirm that amount after they have received confimation of date of death.

dunstonh, thanks for your continued interest in this...

Update: Today, Pearl was once again telephoned and eventually and at our insistance we were put through to the department which originated the letter asking that we return the policy documents and any monies paid to my late father since his death...

We asked why Pearl required the original policy documents... we were told Pearl did not now require the documents.

We asked why Pearl required the return of all monies paid since my father's death... again we were told that it was because all 3 of the pension payments were paid in advance. As I have said before, we know this to be untrue so; this is either an outright lie or Pearl does require sight of the original policy documents in order to inform themselves of the actual terms of the policies. Meanwhile Pearl could care less about disrupting our finances by insisting that we return monies that need not be returned.

We asked Pearl for the name of the person who had advised it of my father's death... again Pearl could not give this information because Pearl didn't know. So we asked why Pearl had stopped pension payments without first contacting the policy holder... we were then told that the payments had been stopped on the strength of my original e-mail ????????????

As I have mentioned, the original e-mail was in fact a request via Pear's website 'contact' function - asking Pearl to advise us of how to officially inform Pearl of my father's death. This 'e-mail' was a full seven days prior to Pearl first being telephoned, it was never answered by Pearl and never mentioned before now.

Pearl was asked why a claim form was not sent to us on the strength of the e-mail... this is where Pearl again start twisting, Pearl now insist that the letter we received was in reply to the 'e-mail', not in fact to the telephone call informing Pearl of my father's death. Another lie - the first line of the letter states clearly that it is in reference to our recent telephone call and is dated the day after that original call.

You may think we are reading too much into Pearl's incompetence but Pearl obviously think otherwise. Pearl's staff now realise they may have lied themselves into a corner regarding exactly when they were officially informed of my father's death and by whom. They realise that we know they are not telling us the truth by insisting that all 3 of my father's pension payments were made in advance.

If Pearl feels it has done nothing improper, why on earth is Pearl telling us lie upon lie?

And still we wait for a claim form which, now Pearl has told us would have been raised on the strength of our 'e-mail', has so far taken 15 working days to arrive - it will be very interesting to discover when it was posted. Would you like to bet that the postal date on the claim form will further show up Pearl's employees to be even bigger liars than we already know them to be?

dunstonh, I really am very grateful to you for your continued interest in this situation but honestly, I am at a complete loss as to how you can even begin to make excuses for the shoddy company that is Pearl.

.

mr.mandrake

EdInvestor wrote:

This would be normal.Insurers destroyed most documents at the time of the introduction of the DPA. This is a major reason why so many endowment misselling claims have been successful - they have no documents to defend their case, even if they have a case in the first place.

Edinvestor,

Thank you for your reply.

In view of the disingenuous way Pearl has handled this from the start and its staff's continued deceitfulness, we are more and more convinced that Pearl is attempting to hide the fact that it cannot easily find the exact terms of my late father's policies.

As I have said from the off, Pearl is at best asking us to do work on its behalf and at worst is attempting to have monies returned to which Pearl should know it has no entitlement.

Even during the course of our last telephone conversation Pearl continued to insist all recent payments be returned but never once enquired if anyone even had access to the bank account of my late father into which his pensions payments were deposited.

.

mr.mandrake

Update:

Still no sign of the promised claim form...

Received 'ING' account statement showing that on the 28th of last month Pearl deposited a payment against my late father's quarterly pension.

Telephoned Pearl and asked if this payment is correct only to be told that if we felt it had been paid in error then it must be retured to Pearl ASAP. We again suggested that Pearl categorically advise us of any incorrect payments Pearl has made relating to all 3 of my late father's pension policies; only to be told that because of the Data Protection Act no information could be given to anyone other than the policy holder.

The pearl employee was asked if they retained the services of a Medium...

If this situation related to the death of someone else's father, I might better able to see the funny side of Pearl's completely unsympathetic, total incompetence.

EdInvestor

It does rather sound as if they've lost/destroyed the file.

Paul_Herring

mr.mandrake wrote:

We again suggested that Pearl categorically advise us of any incorrect payments Pearl has made relating to all 3 of my late father's pension policies

Have Pearl received a death certificate from you yet?

dunstonh

Knowing how they work Ed, there is no file for them to lose. I still reckon they will give the required information once they have the death certificate and that no claims form is required.