Life Insurance Mis-Selling

shedan

When I took out a new mortgage with Halifax, I was told that I had to take out additional life insurance with critical illness cover even though I had existing life cover and also Death in Service which more than covered my mortgage if I were to die. Now that I'm a little wiser, I'm wondering if I needed this extra life insurance at all, especially as it is £109 per month! Is there anything that I can do about this and can I cancel the cover?

dunstonh

When was this. Mandatory life assurance was normal up until the late 90s. The last one to do it was early 2000s. Today, you only see it on commercial borrowing.

If it was mandatory then its not a mis-sale. If yours was not mandatory and you were told that then make the complaint and supply the bank with your evidence to back up your allegation. If you have no supporting evidence, they will reject on that point but still review the overall sale on suitability.

even though I had existing life cover and also Death in Service which more than covered my mortgage if I were to die.

So, onto suitability.....

Death in service is easily eliminated in the shortfall analysis as it's purpose is to cover short term loss of income and lost pension benefits. It is rarely enough to do both of those leaving people short on family protection and debt protection. You say you had other cover, did this cover you for lost income for rest of working life plus mortgage debt? Very roughly speaking, you would expect a figure of around 20x income plus debts to be the level of cover needed. Is yours more than this?