Mortgage Payment Protection

Mick_Cranes_Sidestep

I have an interesting situation with Payment Shield. I took out a mortgage protection policy in 1997 when we bought our first house. the policy is still running and we have had the great fortune to never need it.

I checked my bank statement and this morning saw that they had returned my payment to them. I called them to find:
Firstly they had never updated my address when I changed it 10 years ago; they hadn't updated my wifes maiden name despite us doing this 20 years ago but thats only administrative by comparison.

The returned payment was due to them cancelling the policy in 2014 due to an apparent non-payment. Online banking is a wonderful thing I can see every payment from my current bank going pack to 2014 and can prove the payments have been made. My annoyance is that it has taken over 3 years to return a payment after they have cancelled my policy.

My dilemma is now that if the policy has been cancelled, should I push for only the overpayments for the last 3 years (for which I am entitled plus interest), or should I push them to refund the whole 20 years of premiums given the multiple errors on my policy OR simply get them to reinstate the policy?

**UPDATE** I have again spoken to the company - they have tried writing to an address I haven't lived at for the last 10 years! I notified them of the move, but that must have got lost. Apparently they put up the price in 2010, cancelled the policy in 2014 because it was underpaid (they didn't notify me of any changes!). They are saying that I may owe them money because of underpayments. When we took out the policy, we were advised that it was a fixed price for the 25 year term of the policy.

Is this now a mis-selling complaint?

[Deleted User]

There's no reason for you to have a refund of all the premiums. Not claiming on the policy doesn't trigger a refund.

If you wish to have the policy reinstated, ask them.

ACG

Change of address and name would not prevent them paying out. You were covered and so they are not going to refund all of the payments.

On a side note, payment shield is not your Mortgage lender, the reason that information is wrong I can only assume is because you never called them to update them?

If the policy was cancelled 3 years ago and you have not had the premiums back, then yes get a request sent in for the refunds.

dunstonh

My dilemma is now that if the policy has been cancelled, should I push for only the overpayments for the last 3 years (for which I am entitled plus interest), or should I push them to refund the whole 20 years of premiums given the multiple errors on my policy OR simply get them to reinstate the policy?

Paymentshield are regarded as a good quality provider and generally have good admin. That does not make them immune for errors.

You are not getting 20 years premiums back because of a potential clerical error.

A simple call to them to ask what is going on should yield an answer. Sometimes a single missed premium can creat an arrears issue but because premiums are collected in advance, you are not actually in arrears for the whole of the month. So, you go in and out of arrears and it appears resolved by the time it is on the trigger list for somene to look at it. I have one myself that does that where an amendment caused a month to be missed where they didnt collect either amount.

Mick_Cranes_Sidestep

Thanks for the replies - it seems they didn't act on a change of address I gave them in 2007 and no communication has been coming through. They have apparently put up premiums on the policy in 2010, but because they couldn't contact me they cancelled due to an underpayment of premiums.

The policy can't be restarted as it was cancelled so long ago.

My annoyance is that it took 36 months to finally bounce my standing order - the action that triggered my contact. Had they done this three years ago, this could have been resolved back then.

takman

Mick_Cranes_Sidestep wrote: »

Thanks for the replies - it seems they didn't act on a change of address I gave them in 2007 and no communication has been coming through. They have apparently put up premiums on the policy in 2010, but because they couldn't contact me they cancelled due to an underpayment of premiums.

The policy can't be restarted as it was cancelled so long ago.

My annoyance is that it took 36 months to finally bounce my standing order - the action that triggered my contact. Had they done this three years ago, this could have been resolved back then.

Did you get a letter to confirm they have received your request and updated your address ?