Chase de Vere has been told to compensate a client for over-insuring her, after new evidence came to light.
Referred to as Ms C, the client complained Chase de Vere Independent Financial Advisers mis-sold her two income protection insurance policies.
When Ms C met with one of its advisers in 2006 she already held two income protection policies with an insurer, referred to in the decision only as ‘A’.
The adviser recommended she take out a further two policies with insurer ‘B’.
In 2014, Ms C had another meeting with the adviser, who by now was working for a different business. They told Ms C to cancel the two policies with insurer B because she was over-insured and couldn’t benefit from them.
Ms C cancelled the policies and complained to Chase de Vere it had mis-sold them to her.
Initially the ombudsman’s adjudicator did not recommend the complaint be upheld.
But a couple of months later, MS C discovered information which showed Chase de Vere had based its calculations concerning her level of over-insurance on incorrect data. Her second policy with insurer A was for a higher amount than the firm had stated.
As a result, she believed it had underestimated the extent to which she had been over-insured.
In a final decision, ombudsman David Poley said Ms C’s evidence was “convincing”.
Chase de Vere must pay Ms C the difference between the amount she paid for that policy and the amount she would have paid for a policy worth £6,520 a year - £16,328 to £9,808 - with interest of 8 per cent a year being added to that sum.
