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My mum has terminal cancer and is living in a care home so I recently started managing her money. She has three investment bonds with the insurance company ReAssure, which are worth about £120,000 in total. These give her an income of £978 a month.
My mum is also named on two other ReAssure investment bonds that are owned by my stepfather. He was getting an income from these until he sadly died in September. I reported his death to ReAssure and asked it to assign his two bonds to my mum so she could take an income from them. This would increase her income to about £1,700 a month, which I could use to help pay for her care.
Over the next few weeks I was given mixed messages from ReAssure about what needed to be done to assign the two bonds to my mum. During one phone call, ReAssure told me that it had mistakenly closed one of my stepfather’s bonds and would need to reinstate it.
As the months went on I heard nothing about this so I called ReAssure for an update, only to find out that ReAssure had marked my mother down as deceased. The company has now closed all five bonds and her monthly payments have stopped.
We can temporarily cover her care fees with savings, but given that it still hasn’t reinstated my stepfather’s bond yet, I have no faith that ReAssure will fix its mistake.
After about two hours on the phone to various people, none of whom could help me, I was told that the company had deleted my mother’s address from its database. Before it could do anything to reinstate the bonds and sort out the mess it had made, I had to fill in a form. I frustratedly pointed out that ReAssure had deleted the address from its database, so it should be the one to put it back on.
Every time I call the company I get a different account of what has happened, so I have no idea what it has done and why. I would really appreciate your help.
Name and address supplied
Katherine Denham writes
I was very sorry to hear that your mother was not expected to live much more than six months, which made this situation with ReAssure even more urgent. Marking her as deceased was a shocking mistake and left you with yet more admin when you already had so much on your plate.
I spoke to Phoenix, the parent company of ReAssure, which explained that when you called to say that your stepfather had died, it incorrectly noted that your mum had died instead.
You then sent your stepfather’s death certificate, which led to ReAssure wrongly assuming that they had both died. This prompted the company to close the bonds. The type of bonds that your mum and stepdad owned are investment products that double up as life assurance policies. The bonds invest in a wide range of assets and also allow holders to withdraw 5 per cent of their initial investment each year over 20 years without incurring a tax bill. They are complicated products, providing tax-free income as well as a guaranteed payout on death, and tend to be expensive because there are fees for setting them up and managing them.
Your stepfather and your mum were named as the lives assured on his bonds, meaning that after his death, she could start getting an income from them. When all parties assured on the bond have died, the bonds are closed and the underlying investments are sold and paid to the deceased’s estate.
ReAssure has now fixed its error and reinstated the policies and your mum’s regular income payments.
Your mum had co-owned one of your stepfather’s bonds, which made it easy enough for ReAssure to send the monthly payments of £333 to her bank account. But the fifth bond was owned solely by your stepfather, meaning that you had to complete some extra admin before your mum could start taking an income from it. This has now been arranged, giving her another £375 a month.
Phoenix said: “We recognise that we have fallen short in the administration of the policies and we are very sorry that our customer and her daughter have had such a poor experience, especially at what was already a difficult time for the family. We have reached out to her daughter to apologise and to put things right. The policies have been corrected and we’ll ensure that there is no financial loss suffered as a result of our errors.”
It has made up for three months of missed payments from the four bonds that she owned or co-owned by giving her £3,933. The company has also given your mum £5,000 compensation to reflect the trouble and upset this caused.
You said: “Thank you so much for getting involved. After spending months trying to sort this out myself, it is clear that your intervention prompted ReAssure to take action.”
• My husband has months to live, but Zurich won’t pay his £44k claim
My pension application was lost in the post, now I have to wait to retire
In September, two months before I was going to retire from my role as an administrator at an NHS clinic, I wrote to the NHS Pension scheme so I could claim my lump sum. This letter included various forms that the scheme needed me to complete, which contained all my personal details. I also enclosed certified copies of my identification documents.
I sent this by first class special delivery, which cost £8.95. After a couple of weeks I checked the tracking number and it was marked as delivered. But by November I hadn’t heard anything from NHS Pensions, so I called to get an update and it said it hadn’t received my letter.
I then checked the tracking details again and when I scrolled down the bottom of the page I noticed a photo, but it wasn’t of my envelope. It was a picture of two letters, neither of which were mine. By the time I flagged the issue to Royal Mail in November, it told me that it was past the point where it could look into it.
I muddled my way through its system and managed to register a complaint, although I haven’t had a response to that yet.
I then scanned all my documents and emailed them to NHS Pensions, which in hindsight I should have done in the first place. But it said it wouldn’t be until May at the earliest before I could expect to get my pension and lump sum. NHS Pensions says it takes at least four months to process pension requests and is adamant that there is no way I can get it before this.
This is really frustrating and I’m really stressed about all my personal information going missing.
Gill, address supplied
• Size matters but Royal Mail ‘gets it wrong’
Katherine Denham writes
Thankfully you have some savings to tide you over until you get your pension, but it was unacceptable that you had been left in this situation by failings outside of your control.
I completely understand why you were so concerned about all your personal information being lost in the ether, or worse, falling into the wrong hands. It was even more frustrating that you had paid almost £9 for Royal Mail to take extra care with your letter, but were left wondering where it had got to.
Royal Mail said that, according to its data, the letter was delivered to the correct address and signed for. But given that the letter in the photo was different to yours, you weren’t convinced that it had reached the right place. NHS Pensions told me that there was no evidence of mail being lost in the building. It said: “We have secure, robust processes in place that ensure this would be highly unlikely to happen.”
I asked Royal Mail if it could investigate but it said that because so much time had passed since the date of delivery, this was difficult. Delivery companies also delete parcel information after a certain amount of time, so it’s always a good idea to alert them to issues as soon as possible.
Royal Mail said: “We are speaking to the customer about the next steps and are sorry for the inconvenience.”
Sadly I wasn’t able to locate your letter, but I could help with your compensation claim. At the point that you sent the letter you declared the contents as being worth £25, so Royal Mail has asked for evidence of the value so it can pay it. I asked if it would pay you any compensation on top, but it wouldn’t.
I also spoke to NHS Pensions to see if there was a way it could speed things up so that you could get your pension sooner, and the next day you told me that your lump sum had arrived in your bank account. I hope you can now enjoy your well-earned retirement.
• £561,679: the amount Your Money Matters has saved readers in 2025
If you have a money problem you would like Katherine Denham to investigate email yourmoneymatters@thetimes.co.uk. Please include a phone number
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