Keva complained to us about the sale of her personal accident policy. She said she had never agreed to take out the policy and it wasn’t the sort of policy she would have purchased.
What happened
Keva complained to her insurer about the sale of her personal accident policy. She said she had never agreed to take out the policy and it wasn’t the sort of policy she would have purchased.
The insurer said Keva agreed to buy the policy during a phone call few years ago, and that the policy had not been mis-sold. Unhappy with its response, Keva contacted us to make a complaint.
What we said
Because of the amount of time that had passed since the event, there wasn’t a copy of the sales call recording available. We asked the insurer to give us a copy of the sales script that would have been in use at the time. But the sales script wasn’t dated – so we couldn’t be satisfied it was used.
The insurer’s system notes showed that a policy document was generated around the time the insurer said the sales call took place. But there wasn’t anything to show this document was actually sent to Keva. And even if we could say the policy document was sent to Keva, this didn’t help us work out whether she consented to the sale of the policy.
As the payments for the insurance were fairly small, Keva thought they were bank charges showing on her statements. We looked at her statements and thought this was plausible.
Overall, because we didn’t have enough evidence to show that Keva agreed to take out the policy or that the insurer made the terms clear to her at the start, we were satisfied the policy was mis-sold.
Because the policy was sold by the insurer, we asked the insurer to cancel her policy from the start. We also asked them to refund all of Keva’s premiums, and add simple interest to the refund of 8% per year, from the date each premium was paid – until the date of settlement.