Income protection insurance

lady1964

Hi All,
I'm not sure if this is the right forum for my question and I've had a bit of a scout around the forums but can't find the answer to my question.

I took out income protection insurance with Barclays around the 15th October. We had heard nothing definate about possible redundancies, just the jungle drums booming a bit as cuts in the area I work in have been made in other parts of the country. I work for a county council and was tuped in around 2 and a half years ago.

We all got a letter, addressed Dear...my name...about 4 weeks ago letting us know that due to cuts in funding (Government), there would be a restructure and redundancies would predominately come from the area I work in, it was no more specific than that.

The restructure has been approved by the council committee but has been 'called in' so there will now be scrutiny of this decision, so it could change and have not so many redundancies, or the original decision could stand and all of us at work stand to lose our jobs in the summer. I know there has to be 90 days of formal consultation as more than 99 people could be made redundant.

My question is this, will this original (and so far only) letter that I received affect my insurance paying out should the worst happen? I took a 60 day policy.

Any advice would be very welcome.
Thanks
Lady1964

FakeIrish

So this letter from 4 weeks ago came after you signed up to the income protection scheme with Barclays? If your case has no other variables, then there should not be any problems.

However, it all depends on the T&Cs of the contract you signed with Barclays though. Was there a condition whereby you had to say you had no knowledge of potential redundancies in the future? The difficulty here is that you work for a local council and I don't think anyone could sign with any confident a statement saying they are not aware of any future redundancies.

Gayle1983

I have to agree with SVM on this one and say that you might have difficulties trying to persuade the insurance company that you were unaware of the possibility of redundancies at the time of taking out the policy - it's been all over the news for months now. I know from personal experience that insurance companies are looking very carefully at claims at the moment. I'd look carefully at your policy wording and see if there is an initial exclusion period during which you're not covered (typically 30 days). If there is an exclusion period and you received this letter during that period then I doubt you will be covered. My advice is read the policy documentation very carefully.

lady1964

Thanks very much for your replies.
Yes, the letter came about 4 weeks after I signed up for the income protection insurance, a few of us are worried that Barclays may not pay out so I'll take your advice and read my documentation very carefully.
Thanks again
Lady1964

Gayle1983

I've looked out my policy documentation and what it says is "you will not be covered for unemployment ... if you are made aware by any means, within the initial exclusion period, of anything that might lead to your unemployment, notwithstanding that no specific reference has been made to your personal situation ..."

I think this might be a fairly standard condition in these types of policy so check your documentation for a similar clause.