In April 2024 I suffered a stroke. I am a singing teacher and was working in Cambridge when the stroke occurred, so I was taken to Addenbrookes Hospital for a week before being repatriated to a hospital closer to my home.
While I was in hospital, I remembered that almost 25 years ago I had taken out a critical life insurance policy with Legal & General, something the bank told me to do when I took out my first mortgage.
My husband checked and we were still paying the premiums so we started a claim but six months later I still don’t have the money due to a series of delays.
It took L&G six weeks to find my policy in their system, and after that there was a catalog of errors with documents I submitted that were lost and medical contacts I provided that were not followed up.
Taking his time: ZC’s husband first contacted L&G about her insurance policy while she was still in hospital, but months later he still hadn’t received the money.
The last straw came recently when my claim was delayed again because someone at L&G misspelled the word “secretaries” in an email address.
The stroke means I have problems with movement on the left side of my body. Even if I were well enough to work, I don’t feel safe driving, which is essential for my job as I teach in different locations around the country.
Therefore, my husband and I have to support our two children on one income.
We took a mortgage payment holiday, but that’s over now. I am very stressed and my doctor has told me to avoid it. The policy payout is set at £65,000. ZC, Bedfordshire
Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer advocate, responds: I’m sorry to hear about your stroke, but I’m glad you’re on the road to recovery.
It’s always frustrating when insurance payments take a while to arrive, but in the case of critical illness policies, these delays can have especially serious consequences.
People who claim this type of policy are, by definition, stressed, suffering and in their last moment of need.
The policies are designed to pay in the event of a serious medical emergency, such as a heart attack, stroke or cancer diagnosis, and the exact illnesses covered are described in the fine print.
The money is usually paid as a lump sum and is intended to help cover costs immediately afterwards, such as paying bills while the person is unable to work or helping with any medical expenses outside the NHS.
In his case, he took out the policy at the same time he took out his first mortgage more than two decades ago, and then quickly forgot about it entirely.
At the time, it was common for mortgage lenders to strongly recommend that borrowers adopt policies such as critical illness or income protection, in case they ever found themselves unable to pay due to illness.
We now know that they didn’t always act in the best interests of clients (let’s not forget, this was also the era of poorly sold PPI), but in their case, it’s lucky they did.
As a self-employed singing teacher, you had no sick pay to fall back on.
Even if he were well enough to work, which is not certain, his problem with movement on his left side means that it is not always possible to use a gear stick, meaning he cannot drive.
She has two children at home and is worried about keeping up with bills on just her husband’s salary.
He is also paying out of pocket for private recovery and rehabilitation support, as he believes this will help him return to work more quickly. It is not available on the NHS beyond basic help with things like walking.
In an emergency: Critical illness cover is a type of protection insurance, which is designed to pay out if the policyholder falls seriously ill.
With the help of her husband, she began filing a claim from her hospital bed. The first problem was that Legal & General had no online record of its policy, as it was taken out at a time when some documents were still on paper.
He had misplaced his own copy, so he asked L&G to send him a copy, but this took six weeks, which was the first delay.
He emailed his claim at the end of May, after he was discharged from the hospital. This included proof from the hospital that he had suffered a stroke, as well as a leave from his doctor.
Critical illness claims typically take around six weeks from claim submission to payment being received, and L&G has warned customers should not expect to hear anything for the first month.
After that time, you called L&G, but to your surprise, they told you that they had not received anything from you. This was despite receiving an automatic confirmation email to show that they had been sent.
The documents were later located, but he was told the claim had not yet been sent to the adjusters.
When it was submitted, it had been almost two months since he first submitted the claim.
He included on the form the names and contact details of consultants at both hospitals to which he had been admitted, hoping this would help his claim be processed as quickly as possible.
However, when she called to follow up, she was told that L&G had only contacted one of them and they had not responded.
He is now an outpatient and has a new stroke consultant, so he asked if L&G could contact him to get the information he needed.
You provided your secretary’s email address, but then discovered that L&G had misspelled the word “secretaries” in the email address, so the message was never sent.
When she contacted me, it had been 17 weeks since she submitted her claim and she had not been given a timeline or any indication of when she might receive her vital cash.
The stress was increased by the fact that his mortgage lender granted him a payment holiday, which by then had run out.
Money Worries: After the mortgage payment moratorium ended, our reader was stressed about how she would be able to afford household bills without the insurance settlement.
All the time you were still unwell and under orders from your doctor to avoid stress at all costs.
I contacted L&G to find out what they had to say about their repeated delays and errors.
I am pleased to inform you that, three days after you submitted, your claim was successfully approved and the £65,000 arrived in your account shortly afterwards.
He also promised to carry out an investigation into what happened.
A Legal & General spokesperson said: ‘We are very sorry for the delays in processing this claim, which has now been paid in full.
‘Our complaints team is investigating why our normal high standards of service were not followed in this case and reviewing our processes to ensure this does not happen again.
“We have ensured that (the client) has been informed of this and we hope that her recovery continues.”
I hope L&G really investigates carefully what happened to him.
If it prevents other seriously ill people from feeling the same anxiety as you, it will be time well spent.
CRANE IN THE CASE
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