What painful irony it is to see Scottish Widows letting down the very people it so proudly named itself after in the early 19th century.
I’ve been taken aback by just how badly the insurer has treated dozens of loyal customers in their hour of need.
And the cases reported to Money Mail are just the tip of a mountainous backlog of families Scottish Widows is keeping waiting — 6,000 in total at the start of the year.
Scottish Widows has inflicted lasting damage on its venerable old brand by keeping families waiting months to receive insurance and pension payouts
Readers have told us of struggles to claim money after the death of a loved one. Many have been in tears on the phone. Quite how Scottish Widows’ bereavement teams could treat them so coldly, I cannot fathom.
Companies are desperately pushing us online but that’s no excuse for forgetting how important it is to provide a human touch when it’s needed most.
Terse call handlers and thoughtless letters have rubbed salt into the wounds inflicted by lengthy call wait times and delays of up to nine months to receive insurance and pension payouts.
It’s taken weeks of requests from Money Mail for Scottish Widows to put forward a senior executive to explain what has gone wrong.
Finally, Donald MacKechnie spoke to me and did cough up an apology. He sounded genuinely sorry. And quite right, too
The group has hired more staff and promised to work through the long list of waiting families, paying compensation plus interest.
In fact, they’ve worked through 1,300 cases in the past four weeks alone. It’s a good start. But I’m afraid Scottish Widows has inflicted lasting damage on its venerable old brand.
Certainly, in the eyes of the customers it has let down, there is no way back. Now the rest of the country can read about just how callously Scottish Widows has acted, too.
Premiums greed
Complaints to Money Mail about insurance renewal hikes continue to pile up.
Emails and letters have poured in from those who have seen car and home-cover quotes in some cases more than double — as our Premium League report shows today. Often, insurers cannot explain what has driven the price up and are simply hiding behind the cloak of high overall inflation figures.
Inflation on the consumer price index stands at 10.5 per cent, yet many of the insurance premium rises you’ve reported to Money Mail go far beyond this.
The vast majority are being asked to cough up an extra 40 to 50 per cent on what they paid last year.
It’s almost as though the insurance giants are simply expecting customers to chalk up these astonishing hikes as another cost- of-living blow and shrug their shoulders. No, what this really boils down to is greed.
What’s worse is that most of the largest premium increases have been asked of elderly people. Insurers have found an easy target in vulnerable households who do not have access to the internet and are unable to find the cheapest deals.
Insurers are trying to make more money to plump up their balance sheets by treating us as cash cows they can rip off at will. And once again, the regulator is asleep at the wheel.
Free the cash!
Every month, hundreds of cash machines across Britain are ripped out. That familiar mad dash to find a working cashpoint when you need to pay for something with physical money is becoming harder — especially with bank branches disappearing.
We’ve all been there when we realise the taxi driver won’t take card payments or the shop we’re in is suffering a card machine glitch.
Every High Street should have a hole in the wall, according to major provider Link.
Its chief executive, John Howells, has set Money Mail a challenge: unearth a cash desert where it’s impossible to withdraw physical money for free. If we can find one, he’ll try to do something about it.
So, has it become impossible to withdraw cash in your area? Get in touch — we would love to get an ATM installed for you.
