Mis sold whole of Life awaiting redress

Freddiefitz_2

I have had a whole of life policy with critical illness cover since 1997. I realised it had probably been mis sold recently when I found and looked over the paperwork. I was offered only this product, but not term insurance that would have better served the purpose. As with many whole of life policies the monthly payment has grown and the sum insured reduced since. I complained to the company, now Aviva, but they dismissed my complaint, so I went to the FOS. Aviva have now accepted that it was mis sold and they are now required to put me in the position that I would have been in with term insurance with critical illness cover.
This requires them to find the actual cost of this kind of term insurance and work from there. The problem is, I have no way of independently checking whatever figure they come up with, is there ant way I can find this information? I was 31, female, non smoker in good health and the sum insured was £75000.
Not surprisingly I am not hugely trusting of the company that mis sold me the policy and then tried to deny it.
I would be grateful of any advice.

-taff

Send them a SAR.

Freddiefitz_2

Thanks for your response.
Why do this exactly? I am trying to find out the cost of term assurance with critical illness cover in 1997. Is the SAR just to try to keep them on their toes, or is there some other reason for this suggestion?

Nasqueron

They will have their own records which the FOS will accept as the fines for deliberately lying to you to save a few quid would be horrendous

TBL_2

Very interesting, i have just started the process for the same thing with HSBC. Let us know how you get on.

A_Nice_Englishman

Well, you could contact a range of companies that wrote term assurance with critical illness cover in 1997 and ask them what they would have charged. I don't know how willing they'd be to spend time doing this.

Or engage an actuary to give an opinion on whether the sum offered by Aviva is reasonable. The fee might be more than the compensation though.

-taff

Nasqueron wrote: »

They will have their own records which the FOS will accept as the fines for deliberately lying to you to save a few quid would be horrendous

To see these ^

dunstonh

This requires them to find the actual cost of this kind of term insurance and work from there. The problem is, I have no way of independently checking whatever figure they come up with, is there ant way I can find this information?

They will know their rates from that period. They are only required to price what their rates would have been. Not market rates you would have got from an IFA.

Not surprisingly I am not hugely trusting of the company that mis sold me the policy and then tried to deny it.

You may actually be getting lucky as 1997 still saw whole of life plans still being popular. Albeit it was towards the end of the period they were. The person at the FOS should apply the rules and market conditions at the point of sale. However, very often they do not and look at it today. With so many of the adjudicators being young and unqualified, they just dont have the historical knowledge.

Now, if the Aviva sales rep (as aviva only have liability for products their own salesforce did) had a level term assurance available, then its a stronger complaint. If they didn't, then the adjudicator really shouldn't be upholding the complaint.

For Aviva, its not likely to be expensive redress. They only need to refund the cost difference plus interest. They get to keep any fund value and they have had years of charges. Plus, their liability goes down as your term assurance runs out whereas the whole of life plan does not.

Freddiefitz_2

Thanks, the adviser at The FOS was quite laid back about it saying that the companies can always be trusted. I am not naturally trusting of financial organisations, but knowing there are sanctions helps me understand the FOS attitude.