Our GIANT victory!
In a classic David and Goliath struggle, brotherly love defeats HSBC to win insurance payout
IT IS a modern-day version of David versus Goliath where little David triumphed – not once but twice. Fifteen years ago, Andy Macpherson took on the financial behemoth HSBC over a disputed protection insurance claim relating to bladder cancer.
The bank said his cancer was not serious enough to warrant a payout but he begged to differ. He won despite all the odds – with a little help from The Mail on Sunday.
Amazingly, he has now won a second protracted battle with the same bank over another insurance claim – also involving bladder cancer – but this time for cover bought by his younger brother Alistair.
Again, HSBC considered Alistair’s cancer unworthy of a payout. Andy thought otherwise and took up the cudgels on behalf of his brother – and won. Andy’s willingness to fight the bank culminated in a payout of £160,000 for himself in 2002.
His refusal to take no for an answer from the bank with regards to his brother’s claim has now resulted in a £100,000 award for Alistair – plus a further £76,500 payout on another policy that his brother has with insurer Old Mutual Wealth.
It is a story of brotherly love to warm the heart. Alistair says: ‘I am delighted that financial justice has prevailed. Andy has been an absolute star. If it had not been for his terrier-like tenacity I would have quietly gone away and my policies would have proved worthless, just money down the drain.’
Crucially, the story highlights the scandalous fact that many protection insurance policies written years ago are now no longer fit for purpose – and are often inferior to those that are sold today.
Insurers, only interested in acquiring new business, show no inclination to automatically upgrade customers’ plans, leaving it only to savvy advisers to ensure clients have the best up-to-date cover.
Indeed, many policies sold today – not by HSBC – would have automatically made payments to both Andy and Alistair when their cancers were first diagnosed.
LAST year, we highlighted the case of Hein Pretorius who lost a leg in a motorbike accident in 2015. His protection insurance claims were declined because only the loss of both legs would have triggered a payout. Vague policy terms, a trait of longstanding cover, also provide insurers with the opportunity – as HSBC tried to do with the Macphersons – to wriggle out of what they consider contentious claims.
Their David and Goliath clash is an epic financial tale. It is about Andy going into battle for Alistair when Alistair was at his wits’ end – enduring numerous operations, just about keeping his import business afloat and contemplating giving up on his battle to get his claim met. It is about a cussed, determined and wily brother who took HSBC – and its army of medical advisers – to the Financial Ombudsman Service (funded by the financial services industry) and, despite the odds against him, won for his younger sibling. A stack of paperwork is testimony to the hours and days Andy spent writing to HSBC, challenging its rebuttals and urging it to do the right thing and pay up.
It is also a tale of extraordinary coincidences. Both brothers fell victim to cancer of the bladder (which is not genetic). Their insurances, sold on the basis they would pay out a predetermined lump sum on diagnosis of a serious illness, were both with HSBC – and certain experts acting either for the bank or for the brothers were involved in both 2002 when Andy went to war with HSBC and 2014 when Alistair’s battle with HSBC began. It all started in early 2000 when 66-year-old Andy, then in his late 40s, fell victim to cancer. It resulted in two operations to remove tumours plus extensive chemotherapy.
Running a successful recording studio – Revolution Studios – from near his home in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, he was comforted by the fact that he had longstanding insurance with HSBC, designed to provide financial protection in the event of serious illness.
But initially HSBC would not pay out the £160,000 sum assured because it said his cancer was ‘noninvasive in situ’ (it had not spread). Such a cancer is excluded under HSBC’s claimable cancer definition. Andy’s consultant, Gerald Collins, a renowned urological surgeon, took exception, telling HSBC his patient’s illness was ‘cancer in the purest sense of the term’.
After Andy’s case was highlighted in The Mail on Sunday, HSBC did a U-turn and paid up, apologising for the ‘problems’ he had experienced in its assessment of his claim.
Since 2002, Andy has been in and out of hospital having tumours dug out of his bladder. Thankfully, since 2012, he has had no further problems. But for the past three years, he has devoted much time to his younger brother Alistair and his quest to get a claim met under insurance bought from the same bank.
Like Andy, 64-year-old Alistair, from Poynton near Stockport, was diagnosed with cancer of the bladder – but in 2014. Again the bank
played hard ball, using the same tactic it employed against Andy, stating his cancer was ‘in situ’ and there was no evidence of ‘invasion’. This was refuted by Alistair’s surgeon – the same Gerald Collins that had diagnosed Andy’s cancer – who described the cancer as a ‘serious and potentially aggressive malignant tumour’.
As if further proof was needed, since 2014 Alistair has endured a series of operations which have left him weak and struggling to keep his import business afloat.
Despite extensive treatment, the cancer keeps coming back – the last time being last December – and he now faces the prospect of his bladder being removed.
Most people rebuffed by their insurer quietly go away, accepting its reason for not meeting their claim. But brother Andy was having none of it.
Armed with all the knowledge he had acquired from 15 years ago when doing his own battle with HSBC, he was determined to get justice for Alistair. Having exhausted all complaints channels at HSBC, Andy took his brother’s case to the Financial Ombudsman Service which arbitrates in unresolved disputes.
An initial adjudicator at the Ombudsman found in Alistair’s favour, only for the bank to request a review of the decision. In March, Ombudsman Jo Storey came down again in favour of Alistair, siding with the consultant’s evidence that the cancer was invasive and stating that the bank ‘must’ pay him the £100,000 due under the terms of his cover. Together with returned premiums the figure is £105,851.
Andy was not finished. Alistair also has a near identical policy with Skandia Life, now Old Mutual Wealth. Although it had played hard ball like HSBC, it relented when presented with the Ombudsman’s verdict against HSBC. Alistair is £76,507 richer as a result.
On Friday, Alistair told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Because of Andy’s never-say-die spirit I now have a degree of financial security. I can devote my energy to fighting my cancer while looking after my family and loving wife Lois.’
Andy is modest about what he has done for his younger brother but like Alistair he believes it is unacceptable that some protection policies are full of ambiguities. ‘In my eyes, cancer is cancer,’ he says.
On Friday, HSBC told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We accept the decision of the Financial Ombudsman Service and wish Mr [Alistair] Macpherson well in his recovery. At the time the policy was taken out, many insurance companies did not pay out on claims such as that made by him. But the market has changed and we have made a number of improvements to the cover we now offer.’
Old Mutual Wealth said: ‘We are sorry for any inconvenience caused to Mr Macpherson and wish him a full and speedy recovery.’