Life insurance - payout refused 28 years ago BUT now they get in touch...

MissBojangles

I am absolutely reeling with shock after receiving a letter from Legal and General looking to trace the next of kin of my husband who died in 1996.  They said in the letter there is an unpaid claim and asked me to call.  I called and was told an unpaid claim had flagged up on their system and they needed me to verify who I was before they would set about assessing the claim with a view to paying.

Background
In late 1995, my husband and I had a visit from a financial adviser.  I assume he worked for Legal and General as he persuaded us to change everything we had over to L&G.  My husband transferred his frozen pensions to L&G and he also advised us to swap our life insurance to them too.  We had £60,000 joint life cover with TSB that we had taken out when we married in 1988.  We went through the process of swapping everything to L&G and didn't think any more of it really.

In October 1996, my husband committed suicide.  He had no prior history of depression and this was totally unexpected. L&G refused to pay out on the life insurance policy as the policy had been in place less than 12 months.  Even though we had had uninterrupted cover since we were married, I was now left with two small children and no insurance payout.

This week
I spoke to the L&G assessor who asked me for information on my husband, including his date of death.  She was 'hopeful' that this could be resolved to my satisfaction.  I am thinking they have reviewed the claim after all these years and decided to pay out.  She then rang back and asked me if I had his death certificate,  Yes, I could send that in...  She asked if I could remember any conversations I had with L&G at the time and I said I couldn't remember specifics, but that the claim had been refused at the time because of the 12 month suicide clause.  Ah - that changed things...  I told her the story of continuous cover and the financial advisor.  I also told her that I had received redress on the pensions that had been transferred because of his bad advice.  She has gone away to investigate.

I was unprepared for how this would make me feel.  After 28 years, the anguish and anger of the time has been resurrected and I feel so cross towards the man who came to my house and persuaded us to change everything to L&G.  It was bad advice (the pensions were investigated and redress given and swapping the life insurance ultimately it cost my young girls their inheritance).

Just wanted to rant...

TELLIT01

All you can do now is wait to see what the outcome is.  Although it's clearly distressing there's really nothing else you can do at this stage.  I know financial institutions do check old files and I benefitted from that a few years ago.  Out of the blue I received a substantial cheque informing me that they had missed one of my brother's accounts 10 years earlier when he died.  Very apologetic, and with interest paid at 8% in these situations the amount received was double the amount in the missed account.

If you do get some form of payout, I'm sure you'll be able to make a decision on what you want to do with it.

Brie

Can't help but just wanted to acknowledge how dreadful this must make you feel, both then and now.  Hopefully there will be a more positive result this time.  

YBR

I'm sorry this had brought back everything from what must have been a very difficult and traumatic time. It's not the sort of thing we ever "get over". While you wait for the outcome, please look after yourself. Do you have any trusted friends who are good listeners?

Flugelhorn

I agree with the others - awful to just open a letter like that and have it all coming back to you. I hope that ultimately you do get something out of this - can't make things right again but may help you and your children

powerspowers

Oh how upsetting for you, I can completely see why it would bring up feelings that you probably thought were dealt with. Be gentle with yourself and hopefully you’ll feel better soon, if not it might be worth looking into some bereavement counselling? If you had very young children at the time of your husband’s death I’d imagine you just had to get on with things and potentially have some unresolved feelings that are making themselves known now.