Healthmaster Plan - a waste of time and money?

witchypoo

Hi all

Back in November 1990 my husband took out an Abbey Life Healthmaster Plan.
As there is no info on it on this forum I will explain the details. For the monthly premium he is covered if he has disability due to illness or accident after he has had 26 weeks off work - basically once his Work's sick pay runs out. He has never had a long term sickness (Goddess forbid) and it has come to our attention that perhaps we are paying for this "what if" unnecessarily. There is no maturity date and it is not a savings plan of course.

Premium is currently £16.25 a month with a current income benefit of approx £7700 per year which begins after 26 weeks' illness. I have tried to find opinions on the plan and they are quite hard to find, the company was taken over by Zurich I believe, in 2001. The only useful info I found was a review by a man who was self employed and had the plan for about 20 years before needing to claim. His claim was refused as they claimed he was "still able to sit and use a phone" - which was no good to him since he was physically unable to do his work and could not afford employees to carry out that side of it.

Thinking about it, if my husband was incapacitated enough that he could not do his job for more than 26 weeks, if the insurers claimed he was still physically able to do some work such as answer the phone or computer inputting, he still might not be able to get there if he was really that bad as we have no transport, then his policy would be worthless to him. Of course any kind of illness could come up, but isn't it a bit much to plan for every eventuality like that?

Anyway we wrote off for the surrender value which came back as £683. The guidance notes which they add to any of their products say it could be possible to take a partial surrender of up to 95% of the policy but I wonder if that would be the case with this type of policy.

I really don't know what to do about it and would appreciate all opinions and advice. Thanks for reading!

dunstonh

I have tried to find opinions on the plan and they are quite hard to find

Any IFA will offer you an opinion and recommendation. In fact, as there is no longer an Abbey salesforce, IFAs are the only ones authorised to do so.

The abbey plan also falls under investment classification of advice and not protection so coverage of information will be more limited. PHI policies are unusual that some plans fall under protection and some fall under investment class. If you see a whole of market protection adviser, they will not be able to discuss or recommend the investment class ones.

PHI policies come in budget, standard and comprehensive form. The budget ones are hardly worth the effort. Also different products have definitions of disability and the budget ones can be quite hard to meet but even the standard and comprehensive ones from differents can specify that you cannot do your own occupation or cannot do any occupation. It is important that you get the level of cover that you wish. Chances are the person you mention had cover set at ANY occupation. So, whilst he can no longer do his occupation, he can do others which means he would be refused.

Income protection plans are not all the same. You cannot measure by premium alone (yet far too may do and we see it on the forums often).

In your case, as you cannot do it yourself, you need an IFA to review the policy and make the recommendation. I would not be surprised to find a recommendation to switch to a more comprehensive plan and one that states own occupation rather than any and probably one that doesnt include an investment element.

Paulf12345

Hi,

My complaints against Abbey Life have previously been upheld for misselling of pension and endowments.

I also had an Abbey Life Healthmaster plan in the '90's and I wondered if anyone had any experience of misselling of this plan or another PHI (as opposed to a PPI)?

Thanks in advance.

dunstonh

I also had an Abbey Life Healthmaster plan in the '90's and I wondered if anyone had any experience of misselling of this plan or another PHI (as opposed to a PPI)?

You have virtually no chance of having a PHI policy complaint upheld. The only thing they can get wrong with it is if the deferment period didnt suit your needs or your employer gave you full income protection until the end date of the PHI.

So, whilst Abbey Life were rip of merchants and known for poor sales techniques and compliance, it is unlikely that you can complaint about PHI as it is a core need for virtually everyone.

niel10528

I too have a health master plan from 1991 to present, I've made 1 claim in 2005 due to a car accident, am in the process of a second claim due to a ruptured tendon on my left foot, prior to the claim, I was thinking of cancelling this claim on the grounds that this policy is miss sold: If I'm paying for a policy it should not matter what my pay has to do with anything, even if I get paid or not from the company I work for, they also ask for a lot of paperwork, thinking it will be too much hassel & not to bother with the claim!!! Can anyone tell me if this policy can be cancelled, the original contract does state that the expiry date of this policy is ongoing for another 14 years.
Can anyone pls help???

dunstonh wrote: »

Any IFA will offer you an opinion and recommendation. In fact, as there is no longer an Abbey salesforce, IFAs are the only ones authorised to do so.

The abbey plan also falls under investment classification of advice and not protection so coverage of information will be more limited. PHI policies are unusual that some plans fall under protection and some fall under investment class. If you see a whole of market protection adviser, they will not be able to discuss or recommend the investment class ones.

PHI policies come in budget, standard and comprehensive form. The budget ones are hardly worth the effort. Also different products have definitions of disability and the budget ones can be quite hard to meet but even the standard and comprehensive ones from differents can specify that you cannot do your own occupation or cannot do any occupation. It is important that you get the level of cover that you wish. Chances are the person you mention had cover set at ANY occupation. So, whilst he can no longer do his occupation, he can do others which means he would be refused.

Income protection plans are not all the same. You cannot measure by premium alone (yet far too may do and we see it on the forums often).

In your case, as you cannot do it yourself, you need an IFA to review the policy and make the recommendation. I would not be surprised to find a recommendation to switch to a more comprehensive plan and one that states own occupation rather than any and probably one that doesnt include an investment element.