Waiver Premiums?

sooozieq

Hi,
Does anyone know if I can reclaim waiver of premium on mortgages.

I had a small mortgage of £24000 (paid up approx 5yrs ago) with that mortgage was paying 3 seperate insurances each of which included waiver of premiums which I have recently found out are payment protection insurances.

This was all arranged by an independent financial advisor, who told us we must have these insurances. He also got paid yearly for 5 yrs on what he had sold us, to say the mortgage was only 24k the premiums weren't small.

Are we eligible to claim anything back? Any advice would be appreciated.

Sue

dunstonh

Does anyone know if I can reclaim waiver of premium on mortgages.

Waiver of premium is a bolt on offered by life assurance companies to contracts that they offer. It is not offered on mortgages.

I had a small mortgage of £24000 (paid up approx 5yrs ago) with that mortgage was paying 3 seperate insurances each of which included waiver of premiums which I have recently found out are payment protection insurances.

Waiver of premium is not payment protection. Payment protection is short term insurance offered by general insurance companies. Waiver of premium is long term insurance offered by life assurance companies.

Waiver also doesnt suffer the problems that PPI has. Waiver is paid monthly, not charged interest on, it is fully underwritten at point of sale, not point of claim and it is put in place under an advice process with a full audit trail and not a sales process with little or no audit trail. It also doesnt overlap with any other product apart from PHI. However, where the provider pays the benefit directly to the policy (and not to your account) then it doesnt overlap at all.

So, all the things that PPI sales can often suffer complaints do not apply to Waiver.

This was all arranged by an independent financial advisor, who told us we must have these insurances.

It is best advice to have waiver of premium on life and pension contracts. So, you almost certainly did have a financial need for them.

He also got paid yearly for 5 yrs on what he had sold us, to say the mortgage was only 24k the premiums weren't small.

That is good to hear. I personally dislike the method of being paid fully upfront with a clawback. Having it paid on drip is much better. However, I think you will find it was 4 years (typically it's 48 months).

Are we eligible to claim anything back?

Nothing you have said has indicated any wrong doing. It sounds like good advice was given and things were set up correctly. Ignoring that, you appear to have taken it out pre-regulation. So, they IFA doesnt have to consider your complaint if you were to make one.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having insurance. Just because you do not claim does not mean you can ask for the premiums back.

sooozieq

Hi,

Thanks for replying but can you tell me what a MIW premium is as I was also paying this as well as the waiver of premium.

Many Thanks
Sue

dunstonh

I have not heard of the initials MIW before.

magpiecottage

The fact that it finished five years ago and had run for five years before that suggests it was taken out in 2002.

The sale of a pure life policy with no investment element at that time would have fallen outside FOS jurisdiction so I think you are on a hiding to nothing.

sooozieq

dunstonh wrote: »

I have not heard of the initials MIW before.

Just to let you know I have just found out MIW stands for Mortgage Interest Waiver.

I have also just found out that I could have had MIW on one life and WOP on the other....

magpiecottage

sooozieq wrote: »

Just to let you know I have just found out MIW stands for Mortgage Interest Waiver.

Okay.

So what we seem to have is a life policy with a payment protection (albeit only of interest) bolted on. It was payable monthly and ran for the life of the loan - which was more than five years. Assuming there was no investment element and it converted to a policy that did have, the policy:

1. Fell outside the jurisdiction of the General Insurance Standards Council
2. Seems to have complied with what the Mortgage Compliance Board advocated.

So I do not see a complaint succeeding.