Upheld: poor service, administrative delays, misleading information, access restrictions complaint against ReAssure Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr G, as executor of his deceased father Mr S's estate, complained that ReAssure Limited provided poor service in administering a joint investment policy, including erroneous identification, misleading paperwork, access restrictions, and excessive delays. ReAssure acknowledged the poor service and offered compensation, but Mr G rejected it and referred the matter to FOS. The ombudsman found that while ReAssure's service was poor, the estate suffered no measurable loss, and Mr G was not an eligible complainant in his own right. Consequently, the complaint was upheld but no compensation was awarded.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman established that Mr G was acting as executor of Mr S's estate, making the estate the eligible complainant, not Mr G personally. While ReAssure's poor service was acknowledged, the ombudsman found that the estate as an entity could not experience distress or inconvenience, and no measurable financial loss to the estate was demonstrated. The ombudsman declined to impose a prescriptive deadline for completion as ReAssure was awaiting accurate records and could not be held responsible for the paperwork error. Online access restrictions were not found to cause measurable harm to the estate given it was ceding its interest to Mrs S.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website