Other Serious Illness and Life Insurance Policies

misstealeaf

Registered User
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Hi,

Looking for some advice in relation to two policies which my late Father had, apologies if these topics have been covered already on another thread.

My Dad passed away 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. His illness had been very sudden and symptomless until he was diagnosed. He had two policies with FF- a life assurance policy and a serious illness policy. I have notified the insurer of his passing and they say they will be in touch in due course with regard to claims.

Life Assurance:
- What type of information is the insuer likely to look for in relation to a claim under this policy? The policy was initially taken out in 2006. How long does it usually take to process a claim under a life assurance policy?

Serious Illness:
- Under this policy a condition is that you notify the insurer within 3 mths of being diagnosed with a serious illness. It seems to be that his particular illness falls within the scope of those covered in the policy. He notified the insurers himself, in writing, of his diagnosis within 7 days. It also states on the policy that you must survive 14 days after diagnosis. He survived 22 days from the date of diagnosis- this is the date the hospital told him that he had cancer, i assume that this would be the diagnosis date? What is the typical process for processing a claim under the serious illness policy? Should it impact the claim that he subsequently died?

In relation to the benefits under both policies are these usually paid to the estate of the deceased or to the spouse of the deceased?

Thanks for your help with this and any advise in relation to dealing with the insurers would be greatly appreciated.
 
My deepest sympathy's on the recent passing of your dad.

Life Cover

Firstly a interim death cert is needed before a claim would begin to be processed. The life company will contact his doctors to make sure that your dad disclosed all relevant medical information on his original application form for life cover before admitting the claim. How long this takes really depends on how long his doctors takes to complete the life companies questioner (may have to wait for post mortem results) . Some doctors are great and will return same in a matter of a few days others are quite slow and can take months. If this is the case you will need to follow up and put a little pressure on doctors to complete.

Then it depends on who the beneficial owner of the policy is i.e. was the policy assigned to a bank, did your mum/his wife own the policy, was the policy set up under trust etc. If none of these and your dad was the owner, then depending on the value of the policy it could be paid out in a matter of weeks, that said every company has its own probate limits. The max probate limit that I am aware of is 63,500 and the lowest is 10,000. So if the policy value is above this limit your family would have to wait for probate to be granted. It can take up to 6 months for probate to be granted depending on how busy your nearest probate office is. You should check with his solicitor on which office has the shortest waiting time.

Serious Illness

As above.

The administrator of his estate should complete the claim forms for the serious illness and life cover. If his spouse/your mum was the joint owner of the policy she can also complete the claim forms. If the policy was a Dual life policy make sure to continue paying the monthly premiums. This will have no impact on the claim however if the policy lapses his wife/your mum will have to apply for a new policy in their name and will have to go through medical underwriting again
 
Thanks for the response. Sounds like it could be a long enough process. we have the death cert already as no post mortem etc was required so we'll just have to wait and see what next steps the insurer requires. i don't know what doctors they'll contact though as he didn't really have any doctor/gp as was never sick, this illness was very sudden- only in past two months.
 
In the case of person that rarely ever seen a doctor in their lives, the insurance company or broker would have asked for the name of the last doctor they had seen when the proposal was submitted for life and serious illness cover. I recently submitted an application for a 26 year old who had last seen their doctor 19 years ago! So no need for you to worry about that at least.

When filling in the claim forms, the administrator should just say that they are unsure of who his GP was and leave this part of the claim form blank. There will be a section of the claim form asking for the name and address of all doctors and consultants/specialist he had seen in relation to this condition. The administrator should fill this section in to the best of their ability but include a cover note that he may have seen other doctors.

By the way it would be a good idea for the administrator of the estate to give the claims department a ring for advice on how to go about filling up the claim form as they can be quite daunting for someone who has not done this before.
 
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