Wanting to cash in a lapsed endowment

Scarlets_mum

back in the early 90s i bought a house with an ex.We split up soon after purchase( approx 18mths) in order to sort out the financial side of things i took on the house in my sole name including the endowment. my ex did not sign over the endowment to me as we were not aware that this needed to be done. A couple of years later i sold the house and bought some where else and ceased the old endowment and went onto a repayment mortgage.
The ceased endowment is worth about £7,000 and i have asked if i can cash in my share of it. I have received a letter back from the company saying that I cannot do this and need to trace my ex and get all the paperwork completed. I am not keen to do this as he was a very unpleasant, arrogant and violent man and am certainly not keen for him to know anything about me. Is there anyway around this? He is unlikely to remember we even had this policy and I am only after my share not his

Many thanks for you help

opinions4u

He owns half of it. So your options are limited.

If you do find him, I'd suggest paying a solicitor to make contact and sort out the paperwork.

That way your whereabouts won't need to be disclosed.

Scarlets_mum

It seems crazy that if he dies I would get his life cover not having had any contact for about 20 years. Surely there must be some way that I can cash in 50% and sign off my rights to anything else in the highly unlikely event that he remembers about this policy.

Thrugelmir

The entire policy will need to be cashed in. As has been suggested use a solicitor to correspond. I'm sure that he won't mind bearing in mind that he'll receive a nice sum himself

kingstreet

If this is paid-up, with no premiums being paid, the life cover ceased at that time. Only the value of the plan will be paid on death.

If it was never formally made paid-up, the non-forfeiture regulations applying to the policy may see the sum assured payable on death reduced and the cost funded from the savings element for some time.

A joint policy is 100% owned by the two policyholders. You may feel the entitlement is a 50/50 split, but there is no way for the insurer to deal with it like that, unless it has instructions to that effect from both policyholders.

The discharge forms will require completion and signature by both policyholders. In addition, if the mortgage is still in force, any assignment to a lender would need to be released, otherwise the proceeds could only be paid to the lender to reduce the outstanding mortgage.

bill55bill

kingstreet wrote: »

If this is paid-up, with no premiums being paid, the life cover ceased at that time. Only the value of the plan will be paid on death.

If it was never formally made paid-up, the non-forfeiture regulations applying to the policy may see the sum assured payable on death reduced and the cost funded from the savings element for some time.

A joint policy is 100% owned by the two policyholders. You may feel the entitlement is a 50/50 split, but there is no way for the insurer to deal with it like that, unless it has instructions to that effect from both policyholders.

The discharge forms will require completion and signature by both policyholders. In addition, if the mortgage is still in force, any assignment to a lender would need to be released, otherwise the proceeds could only be paid to the lender to reduce the outstanding mortgage.

I'm in a similar position to the OP.

What happens if the ex has gone off travelling the world and has no intention of ever returning to the UK? Does the insurance company keep the money until the end of time?

This seems very unfair, what if a 'form of indemnity' was signed so that they are covered if the other person at any time in the future comes forward and makes a claim on the whole amount?

I can see their position, for all they know I may have signed over the whole policy to my ex and therefore not have a valid claim myself but there must be some mechanism to resolve this surely?

Annisele

bill55bill wrote: »

I can see their position, for all they know I may have signed over the whole policy to my ex and therefore not have a valid claim myself but there must be some mechanism to resolve this surely?

The only mechanism I know if is to go to court and get a court order to say the insurance company should do [something]. That's neither cheap nor quick.

(I'm not saying there aren't other mechanisms - just that I haven't heard of any others).