The good news is that you don’t need to be a budding Sherlock Holmes to keep tabs on your insurance policy should you misplace your documentation.
Nor do you need to recruit the powers of a superhero, complete with either X-Ray vision, the ability to bend minds or teleport yourself back to a time and place where that mislaid paperwork might be. And that’s thanks in the main to there now being ‘ways and means’ of relocating important insurance docs which have gone AWOL which you might not have otherwise known about.
There are always ways and means, some less sinister than others you’ll be pleased to learn. Did you know for example that should you be in the unfortunate position of losing a life insurance policy (or for that matter, aiding and abetting a relative or friend who may have absent-mindedly forgot where they put theirs for safe-keeping), then you can ascertain the all-important facts and figures via a number of alternative – and law-abiding – methods and applications.
Life, motor, home and various other crucial insurance documentation can easily become lost, despite you originally hiding them/putting them away in what you considered then to be a safe place.
You’re right, it was a safe place. So safe in fact that even you can no longer find said important paperwork. It happens to the best of us. It’s reported that there’s in the region of £2 billion pounds worth of life insurance currently going begging, with reasons as wide as they are varied.
In some cases people simply forget or are unaware that loved ones took out a policy in the first place as it was so long ago.
Or that if someone has not left a Will then their survivors know not of the policies’ existence. And then there’s house moves, with statistics revealing that one in 16 of us forget to inform financial companies when we relocate.
What’s more, many of the companies procuring these policies in the first instance have since been bought out by larger companies, which equates to policies and monies owing still floating about out there, officially unclaimed. So, essentially people and monies owed occasionally just fall out of the system.
Several means to reconnecting insurance customers with mislaid policy documentation
With this in mind we thought we’d offer some pointers and advice to those who have parted company – temporary or otherwise – with their significant details which are required to enable them to action or update whatever is of the essence then and there.
Looking firstly at the aforementioned life insurance policy, and there’s every chance that for a multitude of reasons you do not recall the name of the insurance provider and therefore have no starting point.
The one thing we’d suggest from the start is to check your bank account/credit card statements with your bank for evidence of payments to an insurer.
Otherwise you could contact the Unclaimed Assets Register either online or by phone, who’ll be in better position to help you track down this information.
There’s a possibility that during the intervening passage of time the company who originally provided you with the policy may have changed their name, in which case your first port of call would bepolicydetective.co.uk. This dedicated website seeks to match people with policies courtesy of tracking down the original provider via their extensive database.
If you’ve somehow managed to lose your motor insurance policy paperwork and you don’t recall the name of the company through which you arranged it then, again, there are a couple of well-versed suggestions to get you back on track so to speak.
Like for instance carefully going back and scrutinising your bank statements as suggested above, as well as refer to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau’s unique database (www.askmid.com) if all other means fail. This expansive online service records the policy details of all vehicles currently insured here in the UK at any one time.
Regrettably should you misplace your home insurance policy – and have no recollection of the company who issued it – then as it stands there’s no central database you can utilize.
If this happens to be the case then we would readily advocate speaking to your independent insurance broker or financial advisor, providing you sought their knowledge and leads from the outset. If not, then we would remind you to re-examine old bank and credit card statements regularly issued by whoever you do your banking with.
If however you do know the company’s name yet simply can’t pinpoint certain policy documentation at the time then you can contact your insurance provider directly, who’ll be in a position to trace your policy once you’ve submitted your postcode and other clearing information personal to you alone.
0 comments:
Post a Comment