Has your Life Insurance or Critical Illness Claim been declined or reduced?

You have legal rights and can claim a full pay out if;

• You did not understand the insurance application proposal questions.
• You made an innocent mistake to questions.
• The mistake is not relevant to the insurance cover.
• Cover and exclusions on the policy were not properly explained.

Life and Critical Illness insurance is very common. They are often taken out and insure against death or a critical illness that prevents someone working and suffering a loss of income. They are often linked to mortgages to ensure a lump sum payout to repay debts such as a mortgage. This can be for a certain number of years “term insurance” or “whole of life”.

Insurers are entitled to validly reduce or deny claim payouts for two main reasons;

• Misrepresentation - which is the deliberate or careless omission of information or providing false information during the term of the insurance.
• Non-disclosure - not providing relevant information in the insurance application and proposal form.

For Life and Critical illness cover, the most relevant information is the policyholders previous medical history or lifestyle information and many claims are refused because insurers believe full information was not given.

Insurers were refusing so many claims that the government acted with the Insurance Act 2015. This ensured that insurers were;

1. Not entitled to deny claims for innocent misrepresentation or non-disclosure i.e. where the policyholder had accidentally overlooked to provide information.
2. Not entitled to deny claims if information omitted would have made no difference to cover being given i.e. it was not material or relevant to the insurance cover.

Despite this, difficulties still arise because whether non-disclosure or mis-representation is;

• Innocent, reckless or deliberate OR
• Relevant

are questions of judgment and insurers have a self-interest in interpreting this to reduce claims payouts. For example, when deciding on claims insurers will scrutinise medical records and sometimes refuse claims for e.g. non-disclosing high blood pressure or alcohol intake.

We believe £100’s millions of valid claims payouts are being withheld by insurers.

This can be seen in;

If you feel your Life or Critical illness insurance claim has been unfairly declined or reduced, WE CAN, FREE OF CHARGE review your insurance documents and advise you if you have a good claim, before we offer you our “No Win, No Fee” Agreement. There is no obligation to proceed so you have nothing to lose speaking with our friendly advisers.

Of course, you can complain yourself and if this is rejected, complain to FOS, the financial redress body. However, there are 4 good reasons for using experienced solicitors such as ourselves;

1. We have over 15 years’ experience in insurance claims, recovering millions in compensation for 100’s of clients, with very high success rates.
2. We will not be fobbed off by rejections or offers of token insurance payouts. We strive to recover the most possible, including lost interest.
3. As Solicitors, we can pursue legal proceedings if it becomes necessary as a last resort.
4. Wading through the details and submitting a complaint yourself can be distressing. We can take care of the details and the whole process.

You are in safe hands with us

We are an award-winning team of solicitors who specialise in financial services claims.

• We have over 15 years’ specialist experience in financial services claims. 7 specialist solicitors in this area with over 100 years qualified experience.
• Our specialist knowledge and presentation of cases results in very high success rates.
• We operate on a “NO WIN, NO FEE” basis.

Our fees

If you have a good claim, we can offer you a guaranteed "No Win, No Fee" Agreement. We follow a tariff of charges set out by our regulator as follows:

If unsuccessful, you pay us nothing. It’s that simple. Our agreement completely covers you for work submitting a complaint, a claim to FOS and legal proceedings if necessary. The Agreement also comes with a 14-day cooling off period allowing you to change your mind.