Death in Service beneficiary

Marcon

Sunflower2102 wrote: »

I asked for an update recently as not heard a thing. It's been three months. Due to travelling a lot with work I have handed this over to a lawyer to deal with on my behalf. Thanks to everyone for their advice.

Six months is not uncommon in DIS cases, especially if the trustees need to do a fair amount of research. The 'with the insurers' excuse certainly doesn't make a lot of sense. If someone dies and DIS was part of their terms of employment (although we don't know if he did have any specialist underwriting terms), any payment from an insurer is for the employer's benefit, otherwise it would be the employer who has to pay.

What do you expect a lawyer to do? You have no sort of right to any part of a discretionary payout. The trustees won't be impressed to get a letter from a high street solicitor; they'd be more likely to take notice of TPAS, as previously suggested - but even so, there is no evidence of anything other than possible (relatively minor) maladministration in terms of not responding to your concerns. That's all you have to complain about, so use the scheme's own dispute resolution procedure if necessary with help from TPAS. If your lawyers haven't suggested that to you, are you sure they have the necessary specialist expertise to deal with this?

Middlestitch

Sunflower2102 wrote: »

I should have said, I wrote a letter and chased and no response at all other than it's with the insurers.

But that IS a response. It may not be the conclusive one you seem to require, but you are being very unrealistic if you believe that what appears to be quite a complicated DIS decision can be neatly wrapped up in a matter of weeks.



Why the urgency? The decision will be what it is and if the trustees are doing proper due diligence, you will have nothing to complain about, whoever the recipient(s) are.

Sunflower2102

You are right there is no urgency at all, it's more closure that's all. My intention isn't to complain about the trustees' decision either.