Not upheld: Travel / life insurance claim disputes complaint against Fairstone Financial Management Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs C complained that Fairstone mis-sold her an income protection policy in 2016 by failing to identify that she already had employer-provided income protection cover offering 75% salary for up to five years. Mrs C claimed she had verbally disclosed this existing cover to the adviser, but Fairstone's records and the confirmation schedule showed she answered 'no' to having existing income protection cover. The ombudsman found that Mrs C had a reasonable opportunity to identify and correct this discrepancy when reviewing the welcome pack, and was not persuaded that she had actually disclosed her existing cover to the adviser. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that the confirmation schedule clearly documented Mrs C's answer of 'no' to existing income protection cover, and that Mrs C had a reasonable opportunity to identify and correct this error when reviewing the welcome pack. The ombudsman was not persuaded that Mrs C's recalled conversation about six months of cover related to her income protection policy, as her actual employer income protection provided up to five years of cover, not six months. The ombudsman concluded that Mrs C had not sufficiently demonstrated she disclosed her existing cover to the adviser.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website