Need advice on Zurich life insurance

SSHADAN

Hi Guys,
so my parents took a life insurance / critical illness cover with allied dunbar with their endowment mortgage in 1999 paying approximately £100 per month, they were verbally told that the insurance covered critical illness.
Unfortunately my mother age 52 has been diagnosed with terminal stage 4 cancer.
The policy since has been "sold or passed on" to Zurich, whom we contacted last week, we were informed on the phone that we were covered by our policy and they would send a claims form within 5days. After 5 days we had not heard anything so called Zurich, we were put through to a supervisor who informed us that they had made a mistake on the telephone and actually we were not covered for critical illness at all and they would not pay out.
Since then they have sent us copies of the policy and a cheque for £170 "by way of apology for our inconvenience"

My parents obviously feel very cheated after stretching themselves for this kind of cover for over 14years.
Can we appeal this? and if we can would in your opinion it be a waste of time?
Thanks
Shahram

kingstreet

What written evidence do they have that critical illness cover was included in the plan?

dunstonh

The policy since has been "sold or passed on" to Zurich

Zurich owned Dunbar (through acquisition) and rebranded Dunbar products some years back.

My parents obviously feel very cheated after stretching themselves for this kind of cover for over 14years.
Can we appeal this? and if we can would in your opinion it be a waste of time?

This is very straightforward. They need to look at the policy schedule and associated documents. if CI cover is included it will say so. if it is not, then it will not.

kingstreet

There can often be confusion between "terminal illness cover" which is a free add-on to a life assurance policy and "critical illness cover" which could drastically increase the monthly premium over a life-only policy.

weighty1_2

Sorry to hear about your mother, however, the wording you used may mean that you can claim on the plan, even if critical illness is not included.

As Kingstreet mentions, terminal illness is a free add-on included in most life insurance policies. This allows a claim to be made when the policyholder has less than 12-months to live and this is confirmed by a consultant or equally qualified medical practitioner. Depending on how long your mum has left I would suggest going down this route.

magpiecottage

I agree that terminal illness cover might apply. It would also be worth seeing if there is still a "reason why" letter from the adviser hanging around. If there is and it says there will be CI cover then the likelihood is that FOS would force Zurich to pay it.

This assumes that the person selling it was a Representative of Applied Crowbar but it was very unusual for IFAs to sell theire mortgage endowments.