Home Repair/Boiler Cover Insurance - Refund after deceased

weby72

My father in law passed away 2/3 years ago. When he was alive, he had (in his name) two home repair/boiler cover policies - one with British Gas, one with Homeserve.


My mother in law developed mild dementia, and she lived in the same house for a further 12 months until her condition worsened and we sold her house (that she'd shared with the F-i-L) to move her into a bought apartment in a retirement village with care on hand 24/7.


After my F-I-L had died, we thought we'd sorted all the necessary paperwork out, but weren't aware of the home repair/boiler cover policies and the premiums continued to be taken from my M-I-L's bank account (formerly the joint account). It was only when she was moving out that we went through all her bank DD's and found these two had continued to be paid, so we stopped them at that point (about 16 months after his death).


My question now is whether she has the right to reclaim the premiums paid after my F-I-L's death until the date the DD's were stopped. It's around £500 in all.


It is my understanding that they are insurance policies, which cease upon the death of the policyholder.


Any help would be appreciated

FutureGirl

I don't think insurances just 'cease' upon death of the policy holder.

They would need to be notified that the policyholder is deceased and you want the policy to stop. Otherwise a policy can continue to run, and auto re-new, as the property will still be insured under that policy, and a claim can still be made if needed.

HomeServe_company_representative

Hi Weby72,

As this is quite a personal query, would you be able to contact us so that we can look into it? Our contact details are on our profile page and it sounds like we'll need to do a little investigating to see what has gone on.

As a little background, if a policy is set up via Direct Debit then it will renew in the same way and the Customer will receive mailings and letters regarding the renewal. This may explain why the payments continued, I suspect they were set up via Direct Debit. I understand that this would have been an issue for your mother in law as she may not have been aware of what cover was in place.

As FutureGirl states, we do require notification if someone passes away so that we can cancel any covers that we need to.

We would like to look into this for you and see whether we can do anything to help so please get in touch.

Stefan
Here to Help Team