mis-sold mortgage protection insurance. PLEASE HELP

jacey45

Please can someone tell me if anyone else has had this problem. In 1989 my husband and I were moving house and already had building, contents and life assurance policies in place. We were advised by the representative of the Alliance and Leicester that there was a new type of insurance which would mean that my husband would be giving his family much more protection if anything happened. At the time it was called Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. My husband pointed out that he did not think we could afford it because of our increase in mortgage payments etc. The guy said that we would not need to keep on paying the life insurrance policy because there was a life element included in the policy. My husband cancelled the existing policy and took up the new policy.
He only ever made one claim after a heart by pass. When he died very suddenly in 2004 my son rang to make a claim on the policy and was told by a very charming lady that the policy was only for people who could not make thier mortgage payments. When he pointed out that his dad would not be able to make his payments because he was dead she said there was no life element to the policy and that was that.
The financial ombudsman is looking into the case but I wanted to know if anyone knows of anyone has been in this position.
Your advice is very welcome.

jasonking

What a shocking story...how the financial services industry has let you down. ASU (MPPI) is widely misunderstood and mis-sold in my opinion and this is just another example. You are doing the right thing by going to the Ombudsman and I wish you the very best of luck.

dunstonh

That is a disgrace and doesnt surprise me. At that time, general insurance wasnt regulated and anyone could sell it.

I was working at a bank in 1989 and even the cashiers sold general insurance if they could and they didnt have a clue what they were doing and that was typical of the sort of things going on that banks.

I hope you get a result. However, I do fear that as general insurance wasnt regulated back then, the FOS may come back with a negative result unless they can get the bank to agree how bad the service was there and show that the recommendation to cancel a life assurance fell under advice rules and that the person doing it shouldnt have done that as they were not licenced and authorised to do so.