Mis-sold insurance on a debt management plan?

Inky_Pete

My wife got into some fairly serious financial difficulties several years before we got together and entered into a voluntary debt management plan with PayPlan.

Until recently my wife has been paying into this plan monthly for the best part of 10 years, but then we found ourselves in a position to completely clear the remaining outstanding debts directly with the creditors and so we did this and cancelled the plan.

While sorting through the paperwork we came across details of a payment protection policy which my wife was encouraged to take out at the time the plan was started. This has been costing £5 per month for the whole of the last 10 years and appears only to cover the paying off of the debts in the event of my wife's death.

My question is, since my wife had (and still has) no dependents was this policy mis-sold? I would have thought that if she had died then the (unsecured) debts would have died with her anyway, and so this policy could not have been of any possible benefit to her.

Do people think that we have a case for the refund of 10 years worth of premiums at £5 a month?

Thanks.

Inky_Pete

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

lemonpledge

It's worth a shot - £600 is £600 and you have nothing to lose by trying. Your wife would need to call Payplan and ask to speak to the Membership Services Team regarding her Cover My Life payment, they should be able to assist her.

A couple of things to note, however;

When you die debts do not always die with you, your creditors may have the right to reclaim debt out of an estate that you leave behind. So if your wife had any assets, say, a share in a mortgage perhaps, or anything she left to you, her creditors would have technically had the right to look to reclaim debt from this. CML is designed to prevent this, so it may not have been entirely useless to her.

Every year when the annual review is conducted with Payplan, they do cover any memberships attached to the account. So if your wife was doing the right thing, and conducting a yearly review (with a staff member who was doing their job properly), she would have been reminded about the policy every year, and told her about the right to cancel.

But as I said, £600 is £600, give it a shot!