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A Queensland woman was “shocked” and “in tears” after her mother who has dementia was sold a $15,000 funeral insurance policy over the phone despite a number of “red flags”.
Belinda Wilkes said the Australian Seniors Insurance Agency, operated by Greenstone Financial Services, shouldn’t have pushed through with the sale when the phone conversation clearly showed that her mother, Robyn O'Neill, doesn’t have the capacity to make choices.
Wilkes demanded an audio recording of the initial phone conversation between her mother and the insurer after receiving the hard copy of the policy via mail.
“I was in tears, I was shocked, I was angry — I was just cranky that another person could do that to someone else,” Wilkes told ABC. “If you heard the recording, you would hear quite clearly in there that Mum could not give her own birth date, she was confused about where she lived. Throughout the whole conversation, she was putting in stories that did not match the context of the conversation that she was having. She couldn't identify what her bank card was amongst the other cards in her wallet. For me, there were many red flags during that 20-minute conversation that the insurer should have gone ‘This person doesn't have the capacity to make these choices — I shouldn't be continuing with this sale.’”
Wilkes immediately called the insurer to cancel the policy and inform them that she has the enduring power of attorney.
“And their response was, you're not down as a beneficiary so you're not allowed to cancel the policy,” Wilkes told the news agency. “If you did want to cancel the policy, I was required to get a JP-signed copy of the original document [enduring power of attorney] and send it to them.”
Wilkes sent the document to the insurer within a day.
“A couple of weeks went by and Mum received a phone call asking whether she wanted to add someone on as a beneficiary,” Wilkes told ABC. “Then I received a phone call saying I couldn't be added because we hadn't sent proof that Mum was no longer capable of making those decisions from her GP.”
The policy was cancelled only after a month.
“They said they had to do an internal review, so they went about listening back to what happened in that initial phone call and then I got a phone call back a few days later saying that they were going to cancel our policy and that our money would be refunded immediately.”
Greenstone Financial Services, the insurer’s parent company, admitted it was wrong to have sold O’Neill the insurance policy.
In a statement, it said: "We agree that in this case, the wrong judgement was made by a member of our staff when selling this policy, and we are disappointed that the conduct has fallen short of the standards we have set for ourselves. Our rectification practices worked to resolve the matter once identified. We will be incorporating this case into our future training," ABC reported.
