Life Assurance Claim

steele101

Good Afternoon, My wife has Term Life Assurance with HSBC which states "this pays a lump sum benefit if (my wife) dies or is diagnosed with a Terminal Illness."
My wife was sadly diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer just over 2 years ago but HSBC are refusing to pay out as, in their words, they only pay out when the person is in their last 12 months. I was looking for some advice.
Regards,
Robert

DullGreyGuy

steele101 said:

Good Afternoon, My wife has Term Life Assurance with HSBC which states "this pays a lump sum benefit if (my wife) dies or is diagnosed with a Terminal Illness."
My wife was sadly diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer just over 2 years ago but HSBC are refusing to pay out as, in their words, they only pay out when the person is in their last 12 months. I was looking for some advice.
Regards,
Robert

What does the policy wording say? Normally payout for terminal illness is only with a prognosis of 12 months or less and even then that may not apply in the last couple of years of the policy.

dunstonh

My wife was sadly diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer just over 2 years ago but HSBC are refusing to pay out as, in their words, they only pay out when the person is in their last 12 months. I was looking for some advice.

They are correct.  TI cover is as described above.       It shouldn't be mistaken with critical illness cover, which would have paid out.

Aretnap

Sorry for your situation.

The policy should define "terminal illness" somewhere in its wording. Most likely you will find that it is indeed defined as having been given a prognosis of less than 12 months to live (or words to that effect).

If it really does say that it will pay out in the event of "death or terminal illness" without elaborating further on what it means by terminal illness then you have a good case. But that would be very unusual I'm afraid.