Advice on fathers life insurance welcomed

coralvb

Apologies if this is a long post but I would welcome any advice.
My father took account a policy with Aviva which he paid for by monthly DD. In November he asked me about a letter he had received from them telling him his policy had been cancelled as 12 months had expired since they had received a payment and that they now wanted to pay him the surrender value of the policy.
He does get a little confused but could not remember receiving any previous correspendence regarding this. He had taken it upon himself to ring the company to find out more about it and to tell them he did not want the policy cancelled but did not really understand what they were telling him. It does seem as though when he turned eighty they wrote and asked if he wanted the policy to continue (but I can't be sure of this) and on receiving no response the direct debit was no longer collected.
We decided that I would try and deal with this and he wrote a covering letter for me to send to Aviva so that they would deal with me.
When I looked at the letters they had sent him, both dated the 23/11/10 one said if they received the outstanding premiums by 1st September 2010 then the policy could remain in force. The other said that as they hadn't received the premiums then the policy was cancelled and they wanted to send the surrender value. This amount was the amount that was left after they had deducted the premiums owed upto 1/9/09.
I wrote to them pointing out that the one letter had stated that if they received the premiums the policy could remain in force and that this is what he wanted but they insisted that it was now closed and that they wanted to pay the surrender value (now less than the original offer) after they had deducted the premiums owed upto September 10.
Can anyone tell me if it is standard practice to deduct outstanding premiums from the surrender value especially as they have cancelled the insurance due to not receiving the premiums.
Poor chap really is confused and a little upset. Any advice would be truely welcome.

magpiecottage

Without seeing the file, I cannot give a definitive answer but this does not sound satisfactory.

If they are insisting on paying the surrender value against his will then you may need to go to FOS.

Point out that he is elderly and that since they will not allow him to pay further, the arrears are getting bigger so it is urgent.

FOS can deal with you if he signs the form and indicates that you are acting for him. It is all fairly straightforward. You can call FOS too if you want. They will then fill in the form over the phone and post it for him to sign and return.

coralvb

Thank you v much, I will give them a ring tomorrow.