Scottish widows refusing payout

tinkerbellgem

Hi all,

Was wondering if anyone can give me some advice please?

My mom had a long time pension and insurance policy with Scottish widows to be paid out upon her death. She passed away on 31st Jan this year. Scottish windows are now refusing to pay out due to policy relapse? She failed to make 1 payment in December 15, as she was in hospital.

Is there anything we can do to detest their desion? As I know she paid quite a lot in over quite a few years.

Thanks for your help.

huckster

I Would have thought that if they were provided with Doctors letter from Hospital that she was admitted and this was sent with a covering letter to the CEO of Scottish Widows, they would have a rethink about this.

Even if the policy terms required payments right up to death, i would find it difficult to believe these companies would refuse payment, if the person missed a payment just before their passing. This would be seen as unfair and the FOS might well decide it is unfair.

dunstonh

Scottish windows are now refusing to pay out due to policy relapse? She failed to make 1 payment in December 15, as she was in hospital.

Sorry for your loss.

A policy would not lapse due to one month. Are you sure it is not longer?
Payments are made in advance and then a missing payment would still have 28 days to be paid before it lapses.

What happened to the bank account that was paying the monthly premium? Did she cancel the direct debit? Normally, payments would continue to go out automatically unless something caused non-payment.

If there are mitigating circumstances and the mandate was not cancelled, you would expect the insurer to honour the policy (and collect the missing payments from the payout). However, if it was something like "mandate cancelled" then you would expect them, correctly, to reject the claim.