Payment protection Plans with GE Bank Store Cards

[valjojo]

Hi,

this is my first post.

My wife took out a store card with ge money and she had been using it and paying it back for a good few years. She also had the payment protection. Last year she became depressed, had a mental breakdown and lost her job after having 3 operations in the space of 9 months. She had been in her job for 18 years and suddenly was out of work, so it left her depressed and caused her to have a complete breakdown. We carried on paying the payments back as we had done, but it some became that we couldn't afford it, so we call the insurance company and asked for the claim forms to be sent out.

We filled the forms in and got a medical report from the doctor as instructed by the insurance company. The doctors report cost us £35. We sent it all off, and a few weeks later we recieved a letter turning down the claim. The reason stated was that the diagnosis had not come from psychiatrist. We spoke to the GP who advised that my wife did not need to see a psychiatrist, and if she had thought she would need to see a psychiatrist then she would have sent her to see one.

We rang the insurance company up to argue their decision and were advised that an nhs psychiatrist would not have counted, as it had to be their own psychiatrist that gave the diagnosis, also it was now too late to make the claim as my wife had been off work for a few months before making the claim.

Has this happened to anyone else? How legal is this, and doe anyone know where we would stand if we were to take legal action against the insurance company, at the very least to get back the payments we have made for the protection?

Any help and advice would be much appreciated!