Could life insurance be cancelled from a phone call?

dunstonh

I suspect plans like the ones you suggest will cost much more than the £10 month she was paying for £52000 worth of cover.

She wont get £52k with the over 50s plans.  Typically a few thousand is the figure.

It may be worth speaking with the complaints team with L&G.   Whilst this isn't really a complaint as there doesn't appear to be any wrongdoing, the complaints team have more discretion to sort things out than the service line.    If it turns out she did do it but was in no mental state at the time, as it immediately followed a brain tumour removal, L&G are required to consider mental health issues.  It may not lead to a different outcome but it may do.   The service line will typically give black and white responses whereas the complaints team can consider the shades of grey and act differently.

Bellaandme

dunstonh said:

I suspect plans like the ones you suggest will cost much more than the £10 month she was paying for £52000 worth of cover.

She wont get £52k with the over 50s plans.  Typically a few thousand is the figure.

It may be worth speaking with the complaints team with L&G.   Whilst this isn't really a complaint as there doesn't appear to be any wrongdoing, the complaints team have more discretion to sort things out than the service line.    If it turns out she did do it but was in no mental state at the time, as it immediately followed a brain tumour removal, L&G are required to consider mental health issues.  It may not lead to a different outcome but it may do.   The service line will typically give black and white responses whereas the complaints team can consider the shades of grey and act differently.

Thank you. The agent said they are still gathering the transcripts of the call. If their response isn't favourable I will help her to put in a 'complaint' or appeal.

csgohan4

For those who are severely ill or potential to be, always consider a Power of attorney as well, for both health/ Finances, will make your life easier dealing and helping them should they lose capacity to do it themselves or simply too much for them to do. 

I've recently done both for my parents, who are both fit, but you can never be too late/early filing one in. 

dunstonh

csgohan4 said:

For those who are severely ill or potential to be, always consider a Power of attorney as well, or both health/ Finances, will make your life easier dealing and helping them should they lose capacity to do it themselves or simply too much for them to do. 

I've recently done both for my parents, who are both fit, but you can never be too late filing one in. 

Good call.  And where there are potential mental health issues where erratic behaviour is possible then it is worth notifying the financial companies so they can class the individual as a "vulnerable" person and ensure extra care is taken.

Also, where you use an IFA for financial products, you can ask the IFA to make sure that unexpected transactions are verified.  We have a number of clients where we have permission to speak to a family member should the person request something unexpected.   In this scenario, L&G would have told the IFA that a cancellation request came in and the IFA could then verify if it was actually correct or not all within the reinstatement period.   That won't help the position now but it may help other people reading this who may be in a similar situation.

Old_Lifer

If ,  for some reason the dd was not requested  could you not argue that it was an error by the Life Office which had caused the policy to terminate ?     Even if the dd bounced because of insufficient funds in the account,  could you not argue that the state of her bank account was not a priority  at the time,  as she had other more important things on her mind ?

Weighty1

Old_Lifer said:

If ,  for some reason the dd was not requested  could you not argue that it was an error by the Life Office which had caused the policy to terminate ?     Even if the dd bounced because of insufficient funds in the account,  could you not argue that the state of her bank account was not a priority  at the time,  as she had other more important things on her mind ?

I don't think anyone is suggested the policy lapsed due to non-payment though.  It's suspected it ceased because it was verbally cancelled over the phone so insufficient funds or anything else other than extreme mitigating circumstances are somewhat moot.

Old_Lifer

Perhaps.   What I cannot understand  is  (now we know the policy was not nearing the end of term  and the life assured has been ill for some time)   why would the policyholder  phone-up  to cancel the policy ?   Is it possible that the first point of contact who may not have had the full details to hand,  may on seeing the policy was no longer in force ,  have assumed the policyholder  phoned to cancel ? 

TELLIT01

Old_Lifer said:

Perhaps.   What I cannot understand  is  (now we know the policy was not nearing the end of term  and the life assured has been ill for some time)   why would the policyholder  phone-up  to cancel the policy ?   Is it possible that the first point of contact who may not have had the full details to hand,  may on seeing the policy was no longer in force ,  have assumed the policyholder  phoned to cancel ? 

Hopefully the transcript of the telephone conversation will answer the questions.

Bellaandme

Thanks for everyone's contributions. We're still awaiting the transcripts but my sister now thinks she cancelled this policy by mistake, thinking it was another policy which she took put to pay for her funeral, which was actually £15 month for only £5000 of cover. She thinks this is what has happened as her DD for the funeral policy is still coming out of her account whereas the L&G one isn't. 

It's heartbreaking but if this is the case there is nothing we can do now.

TELLIT01

If that is the case there is obviously no entitlement to have the policy reinstated, but it would still be worth speaking to L&G and explain you sister's situation at the time.  Whether they can do anything only they can say.