Life insurance claim Dispute

[darkknight43]

Whole of Life insurance policy with profits and periodical endowment paid over 30 years from 1966. Settlement figure at date of death (1999) £278. Can this be correct? The Insurance company say the Monthly payments were £2 over the 30 years, if this had just been put into a current account, the amount would be £720! Is if worth disputing?

[buildersmate]

Eleven years after the payout? - I wouldn't have thought so.
These things notoriously poor value for money when small premiums are involved - too much of them went into sales commission.

[darkknight43]

The money hasn't been paid out yet, The Policy was lost and we only found it 2 weeks ago

[Hymie]

It might be that the pay out amount is correct – but I would definitely query it with the insurance company on the grounds that the amount paid in is £720, versus £278 paid out. The 30 years prior to 2000, we generally years of good return – on most investments.

[factor-fiction]

If it was a life policy wouldn't a guaranteed (minimum?) pay out value on death have been set at the outset? If so, the deceased would have had the benefit of life cover from the 1960s- and thankfully didn't need to benfit from it earlier.
Anyway, buildersmate is correct in that fees were high. I can imagine that in the 1960s/70s a collector called round to collect the monthly premiums so the servicing costs would be high.