Is or rather was our insurance valid?

[Gardener]

It's a long story which I won't go into now.

In a nutshell, we have life insurance cover for our mortgage. The company had not been taking payments, I have been trying to get to the bottom of this for over a year. Now they have woken up and tried to withdraw a rather large sum from my bank ( no advance notification of this from them).

I am going to challenge this, because I really think that if we had been unfortunate to have died this last year, there is no way that the company would have paid up.

I have found this

http://droit-finances.commentcamarche.net/contents/consommation/contrat-d-assurance-la-resiliation-par-l-assureur specifically L'assureur résilie pour non-paiement des cotisations

L'assuré dispose de dix jours après la date d'échéance pour régler sa cotisation. Si ce délai est dépassé, la société d'assurances envoie une lettre recommandée. Trente jours après, le contrat est suspendu et l'assuré n'est plus garanti. Ce délai est calculé à partir du jour du dépôt à la poste de la lettre recommandée. L'assureur a le droit de résilier le contrat dix jours après l'expiration du délai de trente jours si la cotisation n'a toujours pas été réglée. La cotisation impayée reste intégralement due à l'assureur, même quand le contrat est résilié, et son paiement ne remettra pas le contrat en vigueur. Si le contrat n'a pas été résilié, la garantie repart le lendemain à midi du jour du paiement de la cotisation. L'assureur n'indemnisera pas les sinistres éventuellement survenus entre la date de suspension du contrat et celle de sa remise en vigueur.

I haven't had any such letter from them but then I haven't had any contact from them at all until recently despite contacting them frequently this past year. I want to restart my payments and have cover, I am just not convinced that I have actually been insured since the payments stopped and not happy to pay this back payment.

Any thoughts ? Or ideas where I can find out more on insurance legislation please?

[NormanH]

[quote user="Gardener"]It's a long story which I won't go into now.

In a nutshell, we have life insurance cover for our mortgage. The company had not been taking payments, I have been trying to get to the bottom of this for over a year. Now they have woken up and tried to withdraw a rather large sum from my bank ( no advance notification of this from them).

I am going to challenge this, because I really think that if we had been unfortunate to have died this last year, there is no way that the company would have paid up.

I have found this

http://droit-finances.commentcamarche.net/contents/consommation/contrat-d-assurance-la-resiliation-par-l-assureur specifically L'assureur résilie pour non-paiement des cotisations

L'assuré dispose de dix jours après la date d'échéance pour régler sa cotisation. Si ce délai est dépassé, la société d'assurances envoie une lettre recommandée. Trente jours après, le contrat est suspendu et l'assuré n'est plus garanti. Ce délai est calculé à partir du jour du dépôt à la poste de la lettre recommandée. L'assureur a le droit de résilier le contrat dix jours après l'expiration du délai de trente jours si la cotisation n'a toujours pas été réglée. La cotisation impayée reste intégralement due à l'assureur, même quand le contrat est résilié, et son paiement ne remettra pas le contrat en vigueur. Si le contrat n'a pas été résilié, la garantie repart le lendemain à midi du jour du paiement de la cotisation. L'assureur n'indemnisera pas les sinistres éventuellement survenus entre la date de suspension du contrat et celle de sa remise en vigueur.

I haven't had any such letter from them but then I haven't had any contact from them at all until recently despite contacting them frequently this past year. I want to restart my payments and have cover, I am just not convinced that I have actually been insured since the payments stopped and not happy to pay this back payment.

Any thoughts ? Or ideas where I can find out more on insurance legislation please?[/quote]

The nasty and unfair bit is "La cotisation impayée reste intégralement due à l'assureur, même quand

le contrat est résilié, et son paiement ne remettra pas le contrat en

vigueur."

That is to say they have the right to the unpaid instalments .  The fact that they did not collect them may mean that you can say that you shouldn't need to pay, but they will say that you were assured, as no letter was sent. It would be difficult to prove that you weren't since you made no claim.

[AnOther]

As far as I read that letter it means they can cancel if the insured party fails to pay the premiums, a somewhat different situation than them failing to collect because of an administration error.

The fact that they have now realised it cannot be taken to mean that you were not insured and I think basing a refusal to pay the arrears, money which you would have paid out anyway, on the fact that you didn't die is doomed to failure.

[Gardener]

Thanks for the replies. Of course thankfully we willl never know what would have been their reaction had the worst happened, but I know it doesn't take much for insurance companies to refuse to cough up.

Iinitially I believed when the payments stopped that there was a period of adjustment going on and that we had paid too much, though I did contact them frequently to try and find out what was what.

It looked as though I had finally got someones attention quite some time ago and then it went quiet again.

I am annoyed that they then suddenly tried to take the arrears from a( closed) bank account, without giving me any prior warning. If the account had been active, I'd have has real problems.

I am going to get back in touch with them today and see if cataloguing the incomptetent angle will get me anywhere , I think there needs to be some accountability from them.