Mortgage Protection cancelled

jonocon

Registered User
Messages
87
Hi all.

I am going to try and make this brief. My wife passed away 6 weeks ago. The mortgage protection was taken out in 2001. It was with Irish Life. In 2002 I set up the SSIA, also with Irish Life. From 2002 they took one DD from my account for the MP and also for the SSIA. Moving forward to 2007 when the SSIA matured. I decided to cancel paying into the SSIA but didn't cash it in. I cancelled the DD which appears to have also cancelled the MP. Irish Life wrote to me saying I missed a payment and I sent them in a cheque and it was up to date. This happened for the next 12 months, they would write to me saying i missed a payment and i would send a cheque, sometimes they wrote twice and I might send 2 months money in a cheque, the plan remained active. July 2008 I finally got around to setting up a DD. In November 2011 I could not get online to check my still active SSIA. While looking through my accounts etc I noticed my MP hadn't been paid since 2008. The simple fact is I have many DD's leaving my acount and i did not notice that it was not being paid. They told me in 2011 it was out of force and to contact a financial advisor. I just didn't do anything about that, it went out of my head completely. Until 6 weeks ago. Basically they have sent me a letter when I rang them asking why this happened. In the letter they give a timeline of the communication from them to me. They say "On 30 July 2008 you sent us a DD mandate to reactivate the authority on your account. Unfortunately, due to an error on our part, your DD did not get reactivated" It then goes on and says "However, on 23rd September 2008, We wrote to you confirming this plan was out of force due to non payment" I have this letter with the timeline of events and don't know what to do. I am just a lay person. Last week on the phone she told me that they were waiting on stuff back from the bank and that if it was found to be my fault they would not be held liable. This letter states nothing about them not being liable nor does it state that they are. it just says that once i have read it i can call them If I choose. I am worried to call as all calls are recorded. Can anyone give me an opinion? Thanks
 
Sorry to hear about your loss.

Let me summarise in chronological order to make sure I have it right.

2007 - You cancelled the direct debit for the mortgage payment
2007 -2008 - they regularly wrote to you and you sent them cheques
2008 - you sent them the instructions to set up a direct debit
2008 - they ignored your instructions
Sept 2008 - they notified you that the plan was out of force due to non payment
2008 - 2011 - you did not notice that it was out of force
2011 - You noticed that it was out of force
2011 - they told you to contact a financial advisor
2011 - 2013 - you did nothing
2013 - you now want to claim for a policy which you knew was out of force and on which you have paid no premiums since 2008?

I am sorry, but I would be siding with the life company on this one.
They did make a mistake, but you made far more mistakes.
You knew about their mistake in 2008 and didn't seek to rectify it.
 
Hi Brendan. Thank you for the response. They say they contacted me in 2008 but i did not receive a letter. In the previous 12 months they would send at least 2 letters that they would be cancelling the policy yet in september 2008 they say they sent one about non payment yet 2 months previously i had sent in a dd mandate. In 2011 when i became aware of it they said it was no longer in force, i just accepted that as i couldn't remember wheteher I had sent in the DD which now appears I had. Should they not have some sort of liability to me? Why was the MP dd and the SSIA dd the same? I would never have cancelled the MP if it were a standalone one.
 
You had many opportunities to fix the problem over 5 years , and you did not take any of these opportunities.

You seem to have received a lot of letters because you were not paying your MP on time.

I don't think you can accept in 2011 that an insurance policy has lapsed and then change your mind in 2013 when you want to claim against that policy.
 
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