life insurance - delay in payout

Unpensioned56

Hello forumites - hoping for some help in sorting out this problem. My deceased parent left a life assurance policy, in trust to me. They died six months ago  and since then I have been trying to get the company, which is a major one, to pay out. There's no explanation, it's really hard to get through on the phone but when I do they invariably say they don't know what's going on and they'll 'escalate it'. Eventually they told me to complain which I did, no result, and I guess now (8 weeks have passed) the ombudsman is the next step. is there anything else I can do to get the money, which I really need? Is it worth pursuing it via social media or a consumer champion like the Guardian - has anyone had any success?
Thank you!

Marcon

Unpensioned56 said:

Hello forumites - hoping for some help in sorting out this problem. My deceased parent left a life assurance policy, in trust to me. They died six months ago  and since then I have been trying to get the company, which is a major one, to pay out. There's no explanation, it's really hard to get through on the phone but when I do they invariably say they don't know what's going on and they'll 'escalate it'. Eventually they told me to complain which I did, no result, and I guess now (8 weeks have passed) the ombudsman is the next step. is there anything else I can do to get the money, which I really need? Is it worth pursuing it via social media or a consumer champion like the Guardian - has anyone had any success?
Thank you!

Marvellous customer service: we don't know what's going on, so why don't you complain (i.e. that'll get it off our backs and the complaints team will have the problem).

How very miserable for you. Get your complaint in to the Ombudsman, but also worth emailing someone like Tony Hetherington, who certainly has recent experience of something remarkably similar: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-11343359/TONY-HETHERINGTON-Sun-Life-does-funds-payout.html and copying in someone very senior (or at least on the Complaints Team) at the life company concerned.

Malthusian

The Ombudsman is your first port of call and effectively guarantees that the issue will get sorted out - eventually.
Emailing a newspaper consumer champion is never a bad idea. But it's a lottery as to whether they'll pull your letter out of the postbag. 
If you are on Tw*tter it is worth tweeting the official company account. Other social media channels are available, but Twitter seems to have the sweet spot combination of high visibility and low traffic from real humans, giving you the best chance of getting a response from the social media team who often have little else to do.
(The more followers you have the higher chance of them paying attention, so I personally wouldn't sign up just to do that, but your mileage may vary.)
Then there's the extreme option of chaining yourself to the railings of the nearest office after calling a local paper. Not recommending it, but it's the kind of thing people do when they aren't prepared to wait for months.
All the options below the Ombudsman have a chance of speeding things up but also have a chance of being a waste of time and energy. The Ombudsman is lowest effort, 100% chance of a response but longest time to wait for it. So it depends on how much you need the money and how much extra time you are prepared to invest.

Pennylane

I would suggest TrustPilot.  I left a negative review on there for an energy company who have messed us about for many  months and pass us around countless employees who promise to help but never do.  One even said he had raised a complaint on our behalf and would be back in touch within 5 days. 7 weeks later we had still heard nothing.Within 24 hours of posting our review a senior staff member had replied on there and is sorting it out. 

msb1234

My Mother’s insurance companies only paid out once I had completed quite lengthy forms. One of them required it to be paid either to a client account with a solicitor or after probate had been granted. so that took about 3 months.

Marcon

msb1234 said:

My Mother’s insurance companies only paid out once I had completed quite lengthy forms. One of them required it to be paid either to a client account with a solicitor or after probate had been granted. so that took about 3 months.

That sounds reasonable - but 6 months with the life company admitting they don't know what  is causing the delay quite clearly isn't.