Mis-sold Life Assurance but start date is 1 July 1988 is there no hope?

Everyonescurly

Hi 
Thanks for your time looking at this.

I was sold a life assurance policy back in 1988 when I was just 20yrs old, I didn't have a mortgage, I had no dependents and my health was good.

It was sold to me on the basis that i paid in a small monthly amount and it would pay out £100,000 on the event of death for my next of kin and that by starting this early I had a low monthly payment rate of £15.65 pcm, there was no mention of the rate increasing or the final sum decreasing. 

The company providing this insurance changed a number of times and now it is with ReAssure.  Annually who ever owned the company (from Skandia to Phoenix Life, etc) would contact me requesting an increased premium to increase the final lump sum payment.  I never increased the monthly payment.

When I got to my 50's I was told that if I wanted to maintain the £100,000 payment I would have to increase my premiums.  This came as a surprise!

I made a complaint to ReAssure but their response was they are not liable as they did not sell me the original policy and I should try the FSCS.

I've looked on the FSCS website and it states they only consider polices after 28 August 1988, my policy started on 1 July 1988.

is there anything I can do, even for a claim that goes back to 28 August 1988 ?  It feels so cruel to be just a month before the date.

I've paid in c £6,750 (by 1 July 2024)  current surrender value is £1,824.33

Is there any claim I can make or should I cut my losses and just surrender?

Thank you for your time 

DullGreyGuy

Can you honestly state you fully remember the conversation from 36 years ago? Did you read the policy book back then and remember asking the question about the terms around reevaluation?  I'd struggle to remember the conversation from renewing my Home insurance last year let alone 36 years ago!

On every angle you've left it far too late and so you need to decide on the here and now of if its worth paying the higher premiums to preserve the limit, keep the premiums the same and reduce the sum insured or cash in the policy. 

Hoenir

Why have you kept the policy going for the best part of 36 years before complaining?  

Nasqueron

Finance companies are controlled by 2 timelines, set in stone, they apply to you and them

You have 6 years from taking out the product to complain
You have 3 years from knowing, or when you could reasonably have known, you had cause for complaint.

The policy was taken out in 1988 so that kills off point 1. The annual statements and other updates since will likely trigger point 2. In short, you left it far too late to complain you were miss-sold and the current policy provider doesn't have liability for a product sold by a sales person long before the process was regulated.

It's up to you now if you want to keep paying it for the benefit (if you now have dependents, kids, mortgage etc) or surrender it. I would see the positive, you are still alive and had no reason for the estate to claim on the policy

Everyonescurly

Thank you for your comments
Yes I can remember the conversation but take the point it’s my memory of it and that could be different from the advisor’s memory of the meeting. 
In all honesty it was something I’d been told was a good thing and in my mind would provide a benefit of a certain level but is not something that would be relevant until later in life unless I was very unlucky and I didn’t think about it as it just went along in the background.  Also it was coming out of an old bank account in my maiden name and wasn’t on my radar unless the company sent me a letter.

It wasn’t until I was sent a letter about the lump sum changing that I looked at it more closely.  I still have the original documents and can read them to see if it stated that it would change after a certain number of years, however I think that it would be a moot point.  

Time to just cut my losses

dunstonh

In all honesty it was something I’d been told was a good thing and in my mind would provide a benefit of a certain level but is not something that would be relevant until later in life unless I was very unlucky and I didn’t think about it as it just went along in the background. 

in the 80s, these were the typical option used.  However, they went obsolete around the early to mid 90s.  They also needed pretty good monitoring if you went for high life assurance vs low investment.  Otherwise the investment ran the risk of running out.

UtilityMan_3

I’m very interested as I’ve experience of the same kind of issue. You’re still paying premiums? Who to? If it’s Reassure then the policy is still live. You’ve 3 years to complain from the date you became aware of the issue. Seems you fit that requirement. 

DullGreyGuy

UtilityMan_3 said:

I’m very interested as I’ve experience of the same kind of issue. You’re still paying premiums? Who to? If it’s Reassure then the policy is still live. You’ve 3 years to complain from the date you became aware of the issue. Seems you fit that requirement. 

The company that sold the OP their policy no longer exists so no one to complain to. 

It's not 3 years from the date you became aware but 3 years from the date you reasonable should have become aware. The policy book undoubtably does cover the revaluation process and so it'd be hard to argue that you wouldn't have reasonably been aware of it shortly after the documents were supplied. 

This where we hit either 1) you weren't reasonable and didnt read the policy book or 2) after 36 years you've forgotten what the policy book stated and were comfortable with it at the time but now its bitten you want to claim you never were. 

Nasqueron

UtilityMan_3 said:

I’m very interested as I’ve experience of the same kind of issue. You’re still paying premiums? Who to? If it’s Reassure then the policy is still live. You’ve 3 years to complain from the date you became aware of the issue. Seems you fit that requirement. 

The penultimate sentence is not correct.

You have 3 years from when you knew there was an issue OR when you could reasonably have known. You cannot pick an arbitrary date and say this was when you first knew therefore starting the 3 year clock. Many things trigger the 3 year clock, for example with packaged bank accounts, people say they saw something on the Martin Lewis show and would say that was when they knew, but the annual statement of benefit letters meet the criteria for the 3 year rule. Similarly an annual statement setting out your rights to close/complain/value of the policy in question etc may well do.