Appealing life insurance decision

Moneyfaye28

My partners father passed away September 2021.
He had life insurance covering his mortgage of £80k with aviva. After the claim was put in, aviva went back and forth with the gp surgery for around 6 months for more information regarding his medical records.
Devastatingly, they found that in 2011 a doctor had advised his father to drink less alcohol following some routine blood tests - therefore the question regarding issues with alcohol to which he responded none was incorrect/dishonest.
We genuinely believe this was not his intention to lie and he simply forgot about this advice given so long ago.
his death/illness was in no way linked to alcohol misuse. He was a healthy, active man who didn’t drink often!

just wanted some none judgmental advice if possible? Does anyone think it’s worth appealing this and would you involve solicitors?
thanks in advance 

user1977

When did he take out the insurance? What exactly was the "question regarding issues with alcohol"?

Keep_pedalling

Appealing will not cost anything and is certainly worth doing for the ammo7nts involved.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/insurance/misrepresentation-non-disclosure

Weighty1

I'm afraid I believe you would be on a hiding to nothing to appeal.  Whilst you believe it was not his intention to lie this is ultimately what he did do, whether deliberately or negligently as it would be hard for most people to believe that someone forgot the GP recommended they reduce their alcohol intake.  The fact that Aviva have failed to payout at all also suggests that his intake was at a level that they would not have offered cover at all had they known about about his intake as otherwise they'd have likely proposed a partial payout on the plan and NOT a full declined payout.

As above, you can put in a complaint to Aviva and if they still decline the claim you can refer it to the financial ombudsman service (FOS) but you'd likely need a good reasson to believe it was an accidental non-disclosure and not a known misrepresentation.

Nearlyold

Useful info here on the typical alcohol related questions in life cover applications:- https://moneytothemasses.com/quick-savings/insurance-2/life-insurance/life-insurance-and-alcohol. 

rigolith

It depends how the question was phrased. Do you know the exact wording?

kingstreet

user1977 said:

When did he take out the insurance? What exactly was the "question regarding issues with alcohol"?

This ^. What was the time gap between the medical advice and the date of the application?