angry with the bank-preying on the vulnerable or just doing their job?

[logrrl]

Hi
this is an uncharacteristic rant...
Went to the building society today, requesting a small top up on our mortgage for some essential home repairs, which I won't bore you with. Basically, they said yes, you can have the money, although don't forget that you will never make this much money again due to childcare costs, reduced hours etc...which was irritating but fair enough I suppose.
I am really pissed off because the woman COULD NOT BELIEVE we don't have life insurance/mortgage protection especially WITH OUR IMPENDING CHANGE IN LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES. She actually referred to "what if you or your partner dies and the other person has to bring up the little baby on their own-don't you feel a responsibility??" and "don't you think you should have this conversation before you take more money out?" and "what if you develop a life threatening illness"
I am trying to be cynical and just put it down to her doing a hard sell, and she doesn't give a shit whether I'm heavily pregnant or not, but on the other hand, feel like ummm, I may be pregnant but I'm not stupid, still have free will to make financial decisions and I have enough to worry about without your anxiety provoking sales talk.
It's galling that she brought me on side with lots of "isn't this lovely" baby talk before what feels like pouncing on my vulnerabilities.
Am I being loopy?

as a fellow pregnant woman who also works in banking dare I say she is probably right....

Don't want to antagonise you further - sorry. But I have sadly seen many cases when people have got severely ill or died young and unexpectedly and left a struggling partner and children behind. If you can afford to do something about it then I would.

We have lots of existing cover but I am reviewing it again with the impending birth of my second child as Dh would be screwed if I died.

Good luck with your new baby

Sounds horrid. She might honestly believe that you need this stuff, or she might just be manipulating you. I don't think you're being loopy. I hate being 'sold' financial products in person--always feel too pressured. Would rather research things on my own and then purchase them from a company of my choosing.

I think with products like insurance, they have to scare you. Not what you need to make a rational decision.

I think it was unforgivable! Talk about sell sell sell!

She's obviously used this line with success on other people.

It's a horrible subject to think about and even talk about.

I haven't got enough life insurance but I have what I can afford.

We've had 2 unexpected deaths in our extended family, one person has left his family with a 38k mortgage (and a mountain of legal mess) and the other person was a young mum who died - details I won't go into.

I know its a terrible thing to think about but please consider getting some form of life cover/mortgage protection.

My DP became very poorly with a chronic condition in 2007,leaving him with long spells of hospitalisation and he is still unable to work.Luckily we had mortgage protection which has meant our mortgage was paid for a year.We would have been screwed without it.

With regard to the "Hard sell" well I guess this is part and parcel of her job,though I do agree I find banks annoying at times (Evrytime I go to mine they try to get me to "Upgrade" my current account,which I don't pay a fee for,to one that I would have to pay for.Grr)

Your best bet is probably to see an IFA.

Well yes it's a sales tool and maybe below the belt, bt you do need it.
Imagine being not only widowed and holding the baby but having the banks collection department calling after 3 missed payments with an eviction date for you.
I have 3 children and am insured for a million pounds to clear the mortgage and allow DH to stay home and raise our children as I would have.

It's really, really, not a nice line and I too hate it when you can tell they're trying to up their commission, but banks can't win can they? Currently they're getting all the blame for giving all sorts of credit junkies the loans they so craved. As is no one in this country was capable of making an adult financial decision on their own. Anyone would think the banks ran up to them in the street, mugged them then used their personal details to give them loads of 'free money'...
Anyway back on topic, when my mum died in a road accident when I was a kid, and my parents had already split up, it was mortgage protection that enabled me and my sister to live in that house rent/mortgage free until we were old enough to go to uni. If you can afford the protection it's worth it, and if you can't, is it wise to take on more debt when it's that much of a squeeze even with mortgage rates at historically tiny levels?

I don't agree with her tactics but some level of protection is required if you have debts, especially a mortgage that in the event of a parners death can not be paid. For example if you have a mortgage for £100,000 and you are off on maternity leave could you afford to pay the mortgage and the other bills in the event of dhs death? I know it's not nice but needs to be a consideration. Life assurance alone is not that expensive. We have a joint policy for £114,000 for both me and my husband and it costs us £17 a month. If we ever pay off our mortgage then at that point we can decide whether it is no longer required. Some people over insure, our preferred choice is to just do the minimum to cover our backs.
A good ifa should help.

I think it was the way the Building Soc woman put it, and the fact she was talking to a heavily pregnant woman. In a perfect world perhaps they could have mailed the DH/DP separately on the subject.

Jangly - I hope I'm misinterpreting what you're saying. Are you suggesting that the op is incapable of discussing this cos she is pg? I would be furious if someone bypassed me and went to dh to discuss just because i'm pg.

On the other hand maybe you weren't saying that and I have just given another example of being an over sensistive pg woman

Hi
I really appreciate you views on this. I must hold my hands up and say that I just want to live in safe-lovely-baby-on-the-way-I-am-invincible-land, as this has been such a precious pregnancy!!
We actually DO have savings, but as I am going to be spending 6 months of my 12 month ML without a salary, I don't want to stretch the reserves, hence the loan. I'm an educated, professional woman, and I guess I should take the overall message of the annoying BS woman seriously (despite her questionable method of delivery) and look into this insurance malarkey properly.... (but maybe after baby arrives

I think she was very heavy-handed, but her advice and reasons were sound.
I'm the world's most - ahem - sanguine - person going, and that's fine for me, but as soon as DS arrived I knew it was time to get insurance/wills/guardian etc, as DS and DD (due april) can't make those decisions.
However, I'd bristle at the "don't you feel a responsibility?" line.

I thought that you had to have life insurance to cover the mortgage, it isn't very expensive anyway.

Are you sure that you and DP don't have life insurance? Most people who are employed have a death in service 'benefit' which pays out a lump sum of a multiple of your salary. My DH would be loaded if I popped my clogs.

I think that the illness/unemployment cover is a waste of money though - there are so many exclusions and they seem to always get out of paying. It's a much better idea to make sure that you have enough money in the bank to cover the mortgage for a set period of time, even if it means having a slightly bigger mortgage. Then it's under your control and they can't decide that your illness/unemployment doesn't qualify.

You really do need life insurance cover which only pays out on death and does not leave you with a lump sum at the end. This is called a Term Policy. It is much cheaper than life insurance Investment Policy that pays a lump sum after a certain amount of time and is designed really as an investment scheme and of course pays the bank much more commission.

I have a policy that pays out on death (a Term Policy) that I can stop paying into at any time and is not an investment scheme. If you are young and healthy it is a good thing to have and I intend to stop paying into it when the kids are both 18.

You shoudl shop around though - banks do not sell the best or cheapest policies.

logrrl, you'd be better off doing it now rather than after the baby arrives as I suspect you'll be a little busy and distracted then!

I know someone whose husband died young and healthy in an accident. She thought he had life insurance but she and her sister scoured the place, went through every bank statement and even called every insurance company they could find but to no avail (none of which was exactly the thing she felt like doing at the time); there was no sign of a policy and she never has found anything to this day. She and her children managed to stay in their house by the narrowest of margins but it has been touch and go for her ever since. It was quite bad enough dealing with the loss of her husband and the childrens' father without the trauma of the 'are we going to lose the house?' and other money worries on top.

I agree with you logrrl - it's her job to give you information, not to use your personal circumstances to guilt you into taking on a product you may not require.

Fine to say "you may want to consider life insurance, here is some information".

Our previous bank did an appallingly hard sell on me and my partner when we took out our previous mortgage while I was pregnant. I have life insurance so they were trying to sell us illness/unemployment insurance which wouldn't be useful for us anyway as my husband works short term contracts and the risk to his job is his contract not being renewed, which is not payable.

Yet the bank still rang me up half a dozen times saying things like "could you really pay your mortgage for UP TO A YEAR if your husband was made REDUNDANT or suffered a DEBILITATING DISEASE while you were on maternity leave? What about paying for your BABY? We can give you PEACE OF MIND."

I felt like saying "I had peace of mind before you rang me up at work and harangued me down the phone!"

I think her hard sell was a bit much, but you really do need life insurance.

Please, please look into it before the baby is born. It's not very expensive.

Young visitor - surely the most obvious solution is to answer

'Well if my husband was made redundant I would give my employer notice that I am returning'

'Do you have to BUY babies?'

'Only if he isn't sacked over a misunderstanding or suffers depression, which probably isn't included as a 'real' illness in your policy'

I am currently trying to reduce my monthly outgoings and get rid of the random direct debits that add up to about £500 a month in total. I phoned up to pay off my car loan as it's coming to the end anyway, and despite me telling her about going on mat leave she was trying to lend me more money . She didn't seem to be considering how I would meet the repayments on SMP.

My point is that it's just all about making money.

Her methods were a bit OTT but you do need life insurance/morgage protection.

We do not have a morgage but we have very good life insurance cover and are insured in case of DH not being able to work.

I would save money on anything except decent insurance.