Unemployment policy would not pay out

Jperrott1985

Hey, about 10 years I was sold a sickness and unemployment policy with HSBC along with a loan, at the time and for many years since I had been in fulltime employment and had sick pay as standard included so had no need for the policy, that is until I went self-employed in October 2019, and as you may well know by now the country went into lockdown several months after. I decided it was a good enough reason to make a claim against the policy for the time I would be out of work (6 weeks) and called the claims department. After being bounced around half the claims teams at HSBC (the policy was no longer available and no-one I spoke to for a while seemed to know what I was talking about) I managed to get a claim form sent out to me. When it arrived I filled it in as best I could and then contacted the claim line to get help with sections I was having difficulty filling in. Now at the bottom of the cover letter that arrived with the claim form was written in black and white "If you would like help in completing the form please contact the claims team" upon making the request for help I was told that they were not allowed to help and that I should fill in the form as best I could and sent it back, so I did. It took 3 attempts over as many weeks to finally get the form to them as they would not receive post due to possible covid contamination and their email provider had recently changed and would not allow large file sizes to be sent in a single email, but eventually it got through and I waited for a reply, this was on April 29th. Knowing it could take a while with covid to hear back I waited for a reply. September 1st I called them back, at which time I was told my claim had not been approved, I requested an email with this in writing and the reason as to why, September 14th no email no call, I tried again, once again I was told the same thing,  September 16th still no email no call, I phoned them back to see how long it takes someone to write an email and enquired further as to when and why I had been denied my claim at which point was made aware the claim had been denied back in May, after questioning whether people usually had to contact them months after they had made their decision in order to find out what it was and being met with silence I got fed up and asked to speak to to a member of the complaints department. I explained everything that had occurred and was told they would look into it. To this day I still haven't received any sort of explanation or outcome as to the complaint, I am still paying into the policy as I thought it would hinder any outcome to my compliant to cease payment.
The reason I have posted this thread is I would like some advice as how to proceed. Do I go through the Ombudsman and try to get the complaint resolved or do I go a different way and try to claim back some of the money I've payed in whilst cancelling the policy?

dunstonh

Do I go through the Ombudsman and try to get the complaint resolved 

When you make a complaint, as you say you have, you are sent a letter acknowledging the complaint and explaining the process and the rights to your access to the FOS.      

There are two likely reasons your claim was rejected.

1 - when you change jobs, you usually have to have a requalifying period.  Typically between 6-12 months.  You changed in October 2019 and may not have met their requalification period.

2 - There is no indication in your post that you are unemployed.  When you are self employed, you need to cease trading and sign on as unemployed.      So, have you closed the company and signed on?