Critical illness cover help??

K988

Basically myself and my hubby had critical illness cover from buying out house 8 years ago. Recently he suffered a severe stroke which has left him unable to work. We claimed on the critical illness insurance and they have said we didnt declare certain info regarding family history. I know we did, however these werent put on the declaration by the agent who came to the house to sign us up. We recieved a copy of the report and it had our heights and weights wrong (these the agent never asked for) and they are massively off. Also nothing at all we told the agent about our previous health issues had been reported by the agent. The insurer dealing with my complaint has said its unlikly the complaint will with hold as with all the anomalies we may not have got insurance with them in the 1st place. Can anyone offer any advice on this?

Weighty1

Your best bet would be to put in a complaint with the agent who completed and submitted the application with/for you.

If an application is completed over the phone then it's normal practice for an insurance company to send out a paper copy of the Q&A's so that you can check they are correct, however, this does not always happen with paper applications since the insurer works on the basis that you've filled them in and been able to answer the questions fully as the paperwork is right in front of you.

Presumably you signed a copy of the application which the agent then sent on to the insurer? If so you may struggle to get any form of redress as your signature would indicate that you were happy with how the form was filled in.

As I say though, first port of call, complain to the company which the agent worked for.

magpiecottage

Back in the 1990s it was not uncommon for advisers to complete applications for customers - although this was warned against by regulators and not considered to be best practice unless there was some reason why the customer could not do it themselves.

If the adviser completed it this should be apparent from the application form, which would match the handwriting on the fact find.

dunstonh

If the agent was an agent of the insurer then the insurer should already be considering that. if it was an IFA or mortgage broker, then the complaint needs to be made to them.

Insurers normally send out a letter containing the answers to the questions asking you to check them when it relates to electronic of phone based applications. With paper applications, as you have the form in front of you when you sign it, there is not normally a need as you can see what has or hasnt been said.

K988

What if some of the info like height and weight was put on after we signed? We told agent in our home the answers he asked for but he never said about height and weight yet these are on the copies we recieved. Im talking weight wise he was atleast 7st out (not something i could easily hide). Im sure when he came out he had 2 copies for us to sign n said they were both the same. Wondering if they werent.

dunstonh

What if some of the info like height and weight was put on after we signed?

How would you back up that allegation?
Why did you sign the forms if you knew they were incomplete?

K988

To be honest i never knew they were incomplete, cant remember ever seeing height and weight on the form, which we were only able to see when the agent re visited us. Height wise i cant change and shrink myself 2 inches then as for weight i have drs records from around 2month after we signed. 7 stone in 2 months is alot for anyone to put on.