Friends Life - life not that simple.

Legacy_user

Thirty Seven years ago (yes, that long ago), my wife and I took out two Whole Life policies to cover the mortgage in the event of a death. During that time, we moved home 23 times and the policies changed hands four times. Three months ago, I though it wise to let Friends Life know where we were, and I gave them full details of both policies - noting that 25 years ago they were converted to small endowment policies payable on maturity. Friends Life acknowledged my letter but only mentioned one of the two policy numbers. Earlier this month, I received a letter asking where I wanted payment on this policy to be made.

Today, I contacted Friends Life about the second policy only to be told that it was Whole Life (which it isn't). I then asked to speak to a Manager who tried to argue that the reason for the Whole Life statement was that I wasn't 'the grantee' and they were applying Data Protection law. They said that they had written to my wife but she hadn't responded. They wouldn't say which of the 22 previous addresses they had used - all I can say is that it wasn't our present one.

I confess that I had forgotten the subtle difference in the assignment of the two policies but I still cannot understand why Friends Life didn't just say ' we cannot comment on the second policy as you are not the grantee. Please ask Mrs X.xxx to contact us' in its response to me.

I think that I am now beginning to understand how UK insurance companies are holding on to £Bs of unclaimed life insurance money.

InsideInsurance

They pretty much have said that you aint the policyholder and so the DPA says they cannot speak to you. Ok, they did add the bit about getting the policyholder to call but that doesnt take the greatest amount of thinking to work out.

Not really 100% sure what you think the problem is of them not being willing to discuss a policy with someone other than the policyholder?

dunstonh

Today, I contacted Friends Life about the second policy only to be told that it was Whole Life (which it isn't).

An endowment matures on a given date. If it doesnt have a fixed maturity date then it would be a whole of life policy.

If they gave you the data you requested on a policy you are not entitled to have data on then it would be a breach of data protection. No doubt you would be on here complaining about that data protection breach. So, really, they cant win. Just get your wife to contact them.

roonaldo

You have one policy. Your wife has once policy. When you write and change your address I doubt they would have taken your instruction so they have probably written to your wife at an old address. Get your wife to call, simple.

System

Problem solved - I think. FL has just checked its legacy policy scans and it does show an endowment conversion certificate with a maturity date. They cannot yet explain why their system is still showing the second policy as Whole Life. My guess is 'human error'. It must be a tedious job scanning 000s of old policies onto an IT system.

FWiw, I wasn't asking for any specific data covered by DP laws as I had the policy in my hand and the 'grantee' sitting beside me. All I was asking for was 'why have you not written to us with maturity details'? They are now back-tracking on whether they would have written to my wife given that they thought that they were dealing with a Whole Life policy with no maturity value.

My point of posting is to suggest that people keep a close hold on old policy documents. Nothing more: nothing less.

dunstonh

Problem solved - I think. FL has just checked its legacy policy scans and it does show an endowment conversion certificate with a maturity date. They cannot yet explain why their system is still showing the second policy as Whole Life. My guess is 'human error'.

This is almost certainly an old industrial branch policy and these used to be manual records with most providers. When they got entered into systems, it was a human typing in the record. So, data errors could occur. That is partly why they often need policy documents to be returned on policies of that era.

System

The plot thickens. FL now seem to be saying that they accept that the policy in question was converted to a without profits endowment policy but they are now questioning whether they have been taking the correct premium for the last 25 years.