Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society - Penny Policy - advice/help?

fran91

Hello

I'm looking for help/advice/guidance if possible. My Gran recently passed away, and when looking through policies etc she kept I found two Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society policies, and my mum told me these are Penny Policies.

Since then we've found out that it's Scottish Friendly that took over the Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society policies. We've contacted them who could find no record of the policies due to the age (they were taken out when my Gran was young, so this would have been the 1930's), and asked us to take the original policy documents into their office in Glasgow.

We dropped off the documents, and today received a call telling us we'd need to prove the policies haven't already been paid out and are up to date - we have no other paperwork for these policies other than the original documents.

Neither my parents or me have any recollection of my Gran paying out these policies (I was under the impression that they only paid out on death), as my Gran occasionally spoke about these policies and never said they'd been paid out.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice on what we can do next?

Thanks
Fran

sheramber

My husband had such policies for his parents. When his mother died we realised that he was going to pay more into his father's policy than we would get back- fixed sum pay out and pay until death.

He cancelled the policy then and it was paid out.

I

Boggles190

Was she still paying into the policies up to when she died?

Bank statements showing payments to the company should be enough to prove they were paid up to date and hadn't been paid out.

fran91

Thanks, I hadn't thought about bank statements. I'll check those out.

Old_Lifer

These small life policies were referred to as 'industrial' policies, as their origins date back to the Industrial Revolution of the early decades of the 1800's. Before then, life assurance was regarded as for the better-off members of society. With the Industrial Revolution came a range of small insurance companies, friendly societies and burial societies, offering small life policies with premiums collected weekly (the famous 'penny policies'). The traditional Life Offices became known as 'Ordinary Life Officies' and the newcomers as 'Industrial Life Officies'. Over time a few of the newcomers became large and offered both Ordinary Branch and Industrial Branch policies.


With the inflation of the 1970's it made less and less sense to employ people to go around each week collecting small premiums and by the end of decade, I believe four-weekly collections with Industrial policies were normal. A few years later there was a move to collect premiums by direct debit and if I remember correctly, I believe that some Industrial Offices stopped collecting premiums on some very old policies making them into what I understand were called 'free policies' with no more premiums due.


Firstly, you need to discover the type of policy you are dealing with in each case.


Take a look at the bit in the policy schedule that describes the sum assured Does it say:


The sum assured is £x payable on death
or The sum assured is £x payable on death before ______(date)

or The sum assured is £x payable on survival until _______(date) or on death before that date.


Is there any mention of in this section of the schedule of 'participation in profits' or 'bonuses' ?


Take a look at the bit in the schedule that describes the premium. Does it say:


The premium is £x

or The premium is £x payable until ______(date)


Is there any endorsement on the policy saying that the policy has been altered or that no more premiums are due?


It would be normal for a Life Office to request the return of the policy if the policy is surrendered but if the policy was missing at the time you may still have the policy If the policy was altered it would be normal to ask for the policy document for endorsement but again, if it was missing at the time this may not have happened,


If I understand correctly, policyholders with this type of policy had a payment book in which the premium payments were recorded. Have you found any payment books?

fran91

Thank you, I'll have a look at the policies to see what they, and I'll also try to find any books for the policies.

Thanks again