Is Death-In-Service Cover allowed for Mortgages?

hcb42

I tend to agree with dunstonh, the fact that the payments have been paid from parents finances for such a long period of time is certainly something that an insurer would have expected to be queried and given the hoops you have to jump through for insurance then the questions must have been asked. It is of course entirely possible they didnt pay attention or read the paperwork, but I am afraid that is buyer beware.

On the upside, the best bit about term assurance is if you don't have to claim then you are winning

Unlike the poor family on the other thread. My parents both died within a year of each other recently, but had taken good provision here with regard to insurance policies etc, and communicated it to me, and that made life much easier at what was an incredibly stressful time. Had one of your parents died during the period, then this same policy would have paid out and made it easier for the family, so the cover has been enjoyed, knowingly or otherwise.

joemac5367

helencbradshaw wrote: »

Had one of your parents died during the period, then this same policy would have paid out and made it easier for the family, so the cover has been enjoyed, knowingly or otherwise.

Helen it wouldn't have been enjoyed, because my parents didn't know about it, and so wouldn't have claimed, and therefore wouldn't have been paid out.

hcb42

you know, your parents paid this policy for 20 years or so, and unless they have unlimited income at their resources,then they have not reviewed their finances at all in 20years...and life assurance is not cheap. View that from an outside view and your potential complaint, it simply does not add up.

Burridge60

Name wrote: »

.. and he thought the actual house insurance payments were for what ?

We had that one.

Mum and Dad both paid the House insurance without telling the other or it coming up over tea one night when an advert came on the telly for the red telephone people or the tenor.

Good job they never had to claim or mum and dad could have been in great trouble. Still at least they would have found out they had life cover.

Moneyadvisor

Oh and one more thing!!!!!!!!!!

People who pay direct debits for decades and who don’t know what they are for aren’t usually the type of people to complain and go to the effort of filing claims. There is usually another driving force and in this case I would suspect that that driving force is YOU.
Do not advise your parents on things financial, on products which you do not understand! I hope you didn’t advise them to cancel a decent policy and tell them you would set about making a claim.
Leave the advice to those that are qualified and experienced.

Errata

Name wrote: »

.. and he thought the actual house insurance payments were for what ?

I would have thought not for buildings insurance as the annual premium increases alongside the incease in value of the property. The OP hasn't mentioned any increase at all over something like 20 years.

magpiecottage

This case does not stack up at all.

The OP first told us that the sale was around 1988, then it is 1992 or 1993. That is five years' difference.

He was, presumably, not at the meeting when the policy was arranged, so he has no way of knowing what was, or was not, said.

Whenever it was taken out, if it was a term assurance, the sale was not subject to statutory regulation.

There was NO requirement for an adviser to assess suitability. Provided they did not misrepresent the product then there is no missale.

Had the adviser been independent FOS would not have been allowed to consider it at all. As it is, Aviva will have been forced to pay £500 to FOS and spend a great deal of time (for which it must pay somebody) on dealing with it. That cost is passed on to its customers.

FOS has another case to clog up the queue. That means delay for all the legitimate cases.

dunstonh

Had the adviser been independent FOS would not have been allowed to consider it at all. As it is, Aviva will have been forced to pay £500 to FOS and spend a great deal of time (for which it must pay somebody) on dealing with it. That cost is passed on to its customers.

According to the OP its an IFA but if that was the case then the provider wouldnt be involved. There are so many holes in this case and it increasingly looks like a try-it-on.

Peter_L

To the OP - rather than be patronising or nasty here's another way of looking at it, the premiums paid was to insure against a 'possibility', rather like household or car insurance. Nobody likes paying them but do so due to the 'possibility' of an unexpected event which could lead to them being out of pocket of £1000's or £10000's, these premiums will add up to £1000's in the future whether or not you claim.

In this instance they weren't aware what the premiums were for and thankfully didn't need to claim but this is not an excuse to claim back the premiums paid. The company insured a risk of whatever the property price was for a nominal premium, this they did without fault.

My Dad passed away after years of suffering which left my mother to pay a mortgage she couldn't afford to after having to take early retirement herself to look after him. Thankfully they had a similar policy in place which did pay out, not leaving her financially crippled and unable to afford the mortgage. They paid the premium for over 20 years which amounted to £10000's (they were both self employed and over 40, so higher risk)

The fact that your parents are still alive is great but there is no guarantee what lurks around the corner ...

Both myself and wife have DIS cover which will cover the mortgage but why stop there ? We also pay separate life policies which will allow each partner to live without fear of financial difficulties should the other be unfortunate to not be around.

Rather than dwell on what has been paid and what you can get back, enjoy life - after all it's all one big gamble including financially where we play the game of guess the mortgage rate and try and not overpay as much as poss. where people overpay £10000's for not guessing right !

joemac5367

Thanks for those who have given positive advice. It has pointed me towards seeing that the complaint is unlikely to be successful, but at least was done so with some civility. I won't need to post any further. I can say quite clearly though that there have been no lies told by me or my parents, and this is not a "try-it-on"

To the others, and you know who you are, you may think little of my issue, but your rudeness & nastiness was uncalled for. You may wish to check the rules for etiquette on here before posting any more advice. I wouldn't have dreamt of talking to people like that on here, even if I did think little of what they said.