Financial Advisor Cancellation Error

Deb1112

Good evening!
Not sure this is in the right forum but it involves insurance policies and reclaiming payments made by direct debit. Hopefully this will make sense.


My Financial Advisor arranged 2 new life policies for me to replace 2 previous policies.
During the initial discussions and paperwork, I was advised 'Do Not Cancel Your Policy' before another is in place, which I duly didn't, of course.
When the 2 new policies became active, this was confirmed by the FA and I was advised to cancel my direct debit.
Not once was I told that cancelling the policies was my responsibility.
Obviously I thought that if they were starting the new policies on my behalf, as my Financial Advistor they would be cancelling the original policies with the other company, as there would be no sense having 4 policies running at the same time.


Suffice it to say that the Financial Advisors did not cancel the policies and did not instruct me to do this either. I left the direct debits in place at the time as I believed all of the cash would be reclaimable in the future from the insurance company and would have gone to a slush fund. I then forgot to cancel them for some time. (yes, not a Martin Lewis idea but 'it was like saving for me' i.e. it would not get eaten away by other things).
When I tried to get the money back from the insurance company I was horrified when they stated that the policy had never been cancelled.


When I told the Financial Advisor that the insurance company stated that the policies were still active and I would not get a refund of the premiums paid, I was verbally offered £500 as a 'goodwill' gesture. (£250 was paid). At the time I was quite low on funds, depressive and anything was better than nothing.

However, this transfer aside, if they were not guilty of not cancelling the policy nor advising me to do so, why would they offer this money?


Anyway, I am now chasing for the over £2300 which this fiasco has cost me.
It was a few years ago but the fact remains that I am out of pocket by a substantial amount and, having spent many hours helping others chase their PPI, I decided it was time to deal with my own finances and right the wrongs done to me.



What I would like to know is the best way to try to come to a satisfactory conclusion.
I have told the Financial Advisor and Office Manager that I will be proactively following this up to recoup the money I have lost through their negligence.


Please could someone advise the route to take if I get no satisfaction from the company.
I am unsure whether to use FINRA or other avenues.


Any guidance or advice from yourselves would be very appreciated.


Best Regards
Debbie

SonOf

When the 2 new policies became active, this was confirmed by the FA and I was advised to cancel my direct debit.
Not once was I told that cancelling the policies was my responsibility.

Haven't you just contradicted yourself?

Suffice it to say that the Financial Advisors did not cancel the policies

Pretty obvious as they are not allowed to. Which is why they told you to.

I left the direct debits in place at the time as I believed all of the cash would be reclaimable in the future from the insurance company and would have gone to a slush fund.

A totally mad decision by you.

When I told the Financial Advisor that the insurance company stated that the policies were still active and I would not get a refund of the premiums paid, I was verbally offered £500 as a 'goodwill' gesture. (£250 was paid). At the time I was quite low on funds, depressive and anything was better than nothing.

You are lucky to have got that. They probably did it as its cheaper to pay you that amount than to pay a compliance company to handle a complaint. Even if the complaint gets rejected.

I have told the Financial Advisor and Office Manager that I will be proactively following this up to recoup the money I have lost through their negligence.

You mean through your negligence.

When you raised the original complaint, you had 6 months to refer it to the FOS if you disagreed with the outcome. you didnt. So, that route is no longer open to you.

I am unsure whether to use FINRA or other avenues.

What is FINRA?

Deb1112

Thank you for your response.
I am struggling to concur with some of your comments:


The key is that I was not made aware that it was MY responsibility to cancel the policy with the insurance company.
To my knowledge (yes, limited but ..) the over-riding emphasis is on cancelling any contract/policy directly with the firms concerned in the first instance, the direct debit cancellation being a secondary aspect.


Their statement that 'the onus was on me to cancel the policy' was never stated.
The original complaint was a telephone discussion when I discovered that the insurance company would not refund the debits taken.

I am unsure where 6 months comes into play regarding complaints.
If you have a link to this information this would be great but I will try to locate this myself.



FINRA: sorry, this was a red herring via my mobile. Ignore :-)

Thank you again for your responses.

Best Regards
Debbie

The_squirrell

Sometimes I think we all need to take stock and accept that we occasionally will need to take ownership of some things.

It seems obvious (to me at least) that a third party will not be able to cancel a policy in someone else's name without the correct legal authority to do so. Otherwise, any Tom, Richard or Harriett could cancel things without your knowledge.

In this case. it seems as though you may have "assumed" that the policies would be cancelled for you. You did also have the option of asking for confirmation. Why you would leave the direct debits in place is a mystery. Did you have excess cash which you were happy to see leave your account each month? A point here is that if you did cancel your direct debits as the advisor told you to do, the life companies would have written to confirm that the policies would have been cancelled unless the direct debits were reinstated and that would have avoided all this in the first place.

It really does seem as though your grievance here may actually be with your own relaxed approach to these policies and your direct debits at the time?

[Deleted User]

Deb1112 wrote: »

Not once was I told that cancelling the policies was my responsibility.

No one can cancel the policy except you as the account holder. It's the same for Gas, Electricity, mobile phones, Sky TV etc etc etc etc etc.
This really should not have to be pointed out to you and is not a valid complaint reason.

Deb1112 wrote: »

I left the direct debits in place at the time as I believed all of the cash would be reclaimable in the future from the insurance company and would have gone to a slush fund.

The mind boggles.
This was your decision and assumption alone. Not a valid complaint.

Deb1112 wrote: »

When I told the Financial Advisor that the insurance company stated that the policies were still active and I would not get a refund of the premiums paid, I was verbally offered £500 as a 'goodwill' gesture. (£250 was paid). At the time I was quite low on funds, depressive and anything was better than nothing.

You were lucky to get anything at all.

Deb1112 wrote: »

if they were not guilty of not cancelling the policy nor advising me to do so, why would they offer this money?

As already stated, only you could cancel the polices so how are they "guilty"? It sounds like they offered you money to be rid of your vexatious complaint, but only they know for sure...

Deb1112 wrote: »

I am now chasing for the over £2300 which this fiasco has cost me.

Good luck with that

Deb1112 wrote: »

I have told the Financial Advisor and Office Manager that I will be proactively following this up to recoup the money I have lost through their negligence.

In what way are you proposing to "follow this up" years later? It's nothing to do with PPI.

-taff

You were told to cancel them after the other policies were in place. You complained a while after the fact and presumably more than six months ago, and you accepted their offer of money. This means that you had six months after they offered you money to go to the FOS. You no longer have that option.
Your post makes no sense because you say you both were and were not told to cancel the policies.
Your complaint is not going anywhere because you did not check, even a few months after the event, that the direct debits were still being taken which would have alerted you earlier to the problem. The fact that you didn't check is your responsibility , as is the fact that no one who has a modicum of sense would assume that someone can cancel one of your own personal financial products.

antrobus

Deb1112 wrote: »

,,,, I left the direct debits in place at the time as I believed all of the cash would be reclaimable in the future from the insurance company and would have gone to a slush fund.....

Insurance companies do not collect DDs on cancelled policies. The fact that the DDs were still being collected told you that the policies were still active. There is no 'slush fund'.

Old_Lifer

Since you did not cancel the 2 'old' life policies, you would have continued to to purchase and enjoy life cover under these policies. The insurance company has done nothing wrong. I cannot see any reason for them to refund anything.


Although you state that ' there would be no sense having 4 life policies running at the same time' you can have as many life policies as you like, subject to affordability. Some people do have rather more than 4 life policies. When I was younger and when life policies were often used as savings products, I had 23
life policies running at the same time.

Deb1112

Thank you all for your responses.
Guess I shall live and learn ..



Best wishes
Debbie