Eight years ago I started trying to get life assurance for me and exP, when I was about to have a baby. he didn't give a damn about it, took no interest in it whatsoever, was only vaguely aware that it was going on. I rang up and started the process and was told that we would have to do medical questionnaires and perhaps a phone interview. then nothing happened. for weeks. I was nervous about dying in childbirth and leaving my baby with a penniless father :) so I chased this up, and was told that letters had been sent, phone interviews arranged, everything was happening.....
I hadn't been written to. ExP had. He didn't really undersatnd it and it was all a mess.
So I phoned back and asked them to swap our names over. They had put him as no1 and me as no2. I asked them to just pop us the other way around - why not just do it alphabetically, my name is before his in the alphabet...
They refused to do this. They refused to deal with a woman as the primary applicant for life assurance. And they told me it was illegal.. They also got very shirty with me.
It was clear that while they fully accepted in theory that sometimes a woman is managing something like this - and even paying for it? did they understand that? -, it is still inappropriate to write to her, in her own name. what she is supposed to do, presumably, is intercept the post addressed to her male partner, chase him around the house with it while he tries to ignore the matter, getting on with his customary habits of drinking beer and watching football, and pester him to open it and allow her to deal with it; perhaps sit with him for the medical interview, at which he is asked questions about her health, and feed him the answers - maybe cough-speaking like that women on Millionaire - because UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES can a woman come before a man, or communicated with directly as if she takes precedence. Bizarre.
It never happened - I had to go to a completely different insurance provider because they got really annoyed with me for asking the impossible