My wife sadly died of cancer recently at the age of 51.
In June this year, when we were told she had less than a year to live, she submitted a claim for terminal illness on her life insurance with Aviva.
This should have triggered a payout of £422,310, which was designed to pay off our mortgage.
Aviva said it would take nine working days to decide whether to pay out. But after nine weeks it had still not made a decision.
After my wife passed away, Aviva said I had to restart the process because she had died, which I cannot bear to do. Please help.
M. Y., Bournemouth.
Snubbed: Aviva failed to pay out on a life insurance policy after the holder tragically died aged just 51
Sally Hamilton replies: I was most upset to read your email. Your wife had endured a horrible illness and wanted the reassurance of knowing the family’s finances would be secure when the end came. She was frightened you might lose the house if Aviva denied the claim.
But the insurance company that you expected to offer peace of mind in your moment of need let you both down. It was the one thing you say she couldn’t make peace with in her final weeks.
Despite your wife chasing Aviva four times and explaining in two emails that she was receiving palliative care, with the cancer quickly progressing, her pleas for a quick decision fell on deaf ears. Your wife died without knowing whether the policy would pay out.
Many life insurance policies include terminal illness cover. This means a claim can be made on the policy if a policyholder has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and is likely to die within 12 months.
This is designed to help them organise their financial affairs in advance rather than it being left for their family to sort out after they’re gone.
Such payouts should be made quickly once the insurer receives a confirmed diagnosis from the medics involved. In your wife’s case, you could not understand what had delayed matters.
You say Aviva was waiting for your wife’s oncologist for four working days. Apart from those four days, you say the process was under the insurer’s control.
A week after she died, you called Aviva. It had still no progress to report. In fact, it wanted you to restart the claim because your wife had died, which you unsurprisingly could not face. You raised a complaint to the chief executive as well as asking for my help.
I urged Aviva to act quickly to meet the claim and explain why you and your wife had been left in this cruel limbo. A senior assessor contacted you to apologise for Aviva’s handling of the claim and confirmed it would be paid without further ado.
The conversation gave you the opportunity to properly explain to a complaints manager how the uncertainty had impacted your wife.
You thanked me for my involvement and said it made you feel your concerns and frustration were validated, having been previously ignored.
Although Aviva offered no explanation as to what exactly went wrong in this case, it admitted you and your wife had faced an ‘extremely poor’ experience which it said was not typical of its usual service.
A spokesman said: ‘We are extremely sorry for the distress caused to M.Y. and his late wife. We recognise this is an incredibly painful time, and we regret that our service did not meet the level of care and urgency that such circumstances demand.
‘We have settled the claim including backdating payment to when the claim was made, adding interest and paying additional compensation.’
Aviva added: ‘A full review is under way to ensure lessons are learned and that our service reflects the support and sensitivity people rightly expect at such a difficult time.’
With the full payout made, and £1,500 compensation, you can at least forget about finances for now and concentrate on grieving for your wife.
John Lewis shaded me over missing sunglasses
I ordered a £65 pair of sunglasses from John Lewis. I went away but received notification that they’d been delivered by Evri five days later.
They were delivered at the same time as a parcel of dog food from another firm and were left in my nominated ‘safe place’.
My daughter took in the dog food, but didn’t find any sunglasses. Apparently, they were placed on top of the larger parcel, as can be seen in Evri’s photos.
Unfortunately, this made the packet more visible to the road and they were stolen.
John Lewis told me to raise a claim for a refund from my credit card provider. This failed because of the photo showing the items on the doorstep. Do I have any recourse?
J. L., London.
Sally Hamilton replies: Ordinarily, when a buyer orders something from a retailer it must deliver the item in one piece directly to them.
According to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, if something goes wrong with the delivery, such as being lost, broken or stolen, it is the retailer that must refund the customer – or replace the item.
So far so good. Unfortunately, in the scenario you describe there is a gap in that protection. Customers who tick a box requesting to have a parcel delivered to a particular alternative ‘safe’ place, do not get the same protection.
When you filled in the box suggesting that your sunglasses order be left behind the door next to your house if you weren’t in, you lost the right to a refund or replacement.
Had you left that space blank and the courier had chosen to put the package in that space without your authorisation, you would have been entitled to request your money back.
Despite the regulations not being on your side, I thought John Lewis might honour your request for a refund as you have been a loyal customer for many decades.
On re-examining your case, John Lewis said it was sorry to hear about your experience and said as a goodwill gesture it would refund you in the form of a £65 gift voucher.
You say you won’t be ticking that box in future for deliveries, even if it means parcels being left on your doorstep in full view of the street.
- Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email sally@dailymail.co.uk — include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.
