Miss sold Life Assurance

allanmackay

Hi all, If anyone can offer advice on this matter I will be over the moon.

I believe I was miss sold life assurance back in 1999 when I bought my first house. To cut a long story short I was told by the chap in the bank (RBS) that if I did not take out the Royal Scottish Assurance ( OWNED AT THAT TIME BY RBS) policy to cover the mortgage in the event of injury or death that we would not be eligible for the mortgage and they would not lend. I sold the house 3 years later in 2002.

Having recently completed a financial overhaul I noticed a payment going out to Aviva, I have no Aviva products, or so I thought. Aviva bought out RSA and I've foolishly been paying the premium since 1999, it's not a great deal at £12.50 a month but over 13 years it sure adds up. To add insult to injury I did manage to find the old RSA policy document which states that the policy will not cover for death or injury when said death or injury is through an act of war or terrorism... I've been a member of HM forces since 1992 and have visited numerous sandy places most of which don't have bars or ice cream sellers. So am I correct in saying that the policy was never fit for purpose, it was mis sold in the first place and would never have covered me due to occupation?

The bank have rejected my complaint :mad: and given me a cheque for £100 as compensation for the length of time taken to deal with the case.

Should I take this further and how?

Long winded I know but thanks in advance.

ACG

The life insurance policy would have covered you - just not whilst at work. eg - if you had a heart attack and died or were run over by a bus, then it would have paid out. So in that sense it was fit for purpose.

Some mortgages in the past did insist you had life insurance, im not sure when that stopped, it was before i got into the indistry but if you check your mortgage paperwork it will confirm whether or not that was the case.

As for you paying after you sold the house, theyre your finances you should be keeping on top of them.

Youve got nearly a years worth of premiums back, i would count myself lucky.

dunstonh

Responded on your duplicate thread on the same subject.

mon£ycat

I've a similar situation with Aviva. My husband and I took out a 100% from RBS in 2002. At the time, my husband was freelance and I was employed with employer's benefits in the event of sickness or involuntary job loss as well as life insurance.

We were not informed of MPI or Assurance policies when we took out the mortgage. I have a note book of all my research and conversations with RBS. We went direct and spoke with their mortgage lender. On 2 occasions after we had switched our RBS mortgage we cancelled insurances linked to the mortage. I'll have to dig out the details for my own amusement. We thought we had put an end to insurances linked to this mortgage years ago, then last year we realised we had a payment still going out to Aviva. We asked for a copy of the policy as we had no idea what it was. They made us practically swear that we had "lost" our original copies before agreeing to issue a new one. We pointed out we'd not ever taken a policy out with them when we filled out the relevant forms requesting a "copy" of our policy. Turns out it must also be linked to our old RBS mortgage as it has a decreasing term unlike any critial health or life policy I've seen since. It looks as if it was tied to paying off our original mortgage which was on a repayment decreasing term.

Am I to understand from all this that it's basically too bad for me, I've paid for something I didn't knowingly sign up for and that's all there is to it? Please tell me I can at least stop them from continuing to take money from me!

Thanks in advance. This insurance and assurance business is so bleak.