Buildings and home/travel insurance

SueGould

Our mortgage is now paid off, however when it was running buildings, home contents which included travel insurance was always added to our monthly payments. We never requested this but understood that it was a requirement of the mortgage. No questions regarding health issues were ever requested for the travel insurance and it's possible the cover may not have been any use. Does it mean as we were never asked we were miss sold cover and we could claim monies back? Our mortgage has been repaid over six years ago

MWT

SueGould said:

No questions regarding health issues were ever requested for the travel insurance and it's possible the cover may not have been any use. Does it mean as we were never asked we were miss sold cover and we could claim monies back?

You'd have to go back to the point when you first took the mortgage to determine if this was an option you chose or one you were signed up for without your knowledge, but you'd expect that if you didn't agree to it you might have at least asked a question about it at some point before 6 years after the mortgage ended...

Re the travel insurance, you were probably under an obligation to inform the insurer of any material changes in your health since this appears to be an ongoing policy, so there would have been no questions asked...

SueGould

The mortgage was taken out with the Cheltenham and Gloucester who were taken over by the Lloyds group, the travel insurance was part and parcel of home cover+ There are many people who haven't asked questions about cover added to mortgages and general loans over the years and taken it for granted (naeively) that it was a requirement. Websites like this would probably not exist offering advice if we had all been more savvy over the years. PPI is a prime example

MWT

You are going to have to do some more digging of your own on this one I think.

Unlike PPI, having buildings insurance is a requirement of most lenders, so merely having taken the insurance isn't enough to claim it was mis-sold.

It is not however a requirement to take the insurance from your lender, nor is it a requirement to take additional insurance products associated with it, but it was common to be offered those products during the process of obtaining a mortgage.

If your claim is that you were told that it was a requirement of the loan to take their insurance including the additional cover then do you have anything to back that up?

Have you still got your copies of the original loan paperwork? ... what does it say in there about insurance products?

MovingForwards

When did you take the mortgage out?

Was it via a broker or direct with C&G?

Things were done differently over the years and what is wrong now, may not have been 30 years ago.

MWT

My recollections from that time period is that it was common to be offered insurance products when taking out a mortgage but it was not a requirement of the mortgage to take them.

I'm not sure that is so very different now...

The original paperwork should give some clues about options taken at the time so that is where I'd start looking in this case...