I'm having a ding-dong with Phoenix Life Ltd.

They wrote to us in March saying that they were unable to collect direct debits from our account. I phoned and said that there was no problem, the direct debit was still set up. They asked me to send in a new mandate so I did.

Meanwhile they wrote and said that given that we hadn't paid for 3 months, the policy had lapsed.

I looked in to it further and found that when they wrote to us in January, they noted our account number details. We didn't check it because it hadn't changed but it turns out that they wrote down the account number of our old bank account (which was closed in 2005).

They say they will only reinstate the policy if we complete a new declaration of health. Nothing's particularly changed in our health, but we object on principle -- and also because they might suddenly decide to cancel the policy for good or up the premium.

They refuse to admit that the non-collection of premiums was our error and not theirs and claim that they were getting money out of the old account all along. We're writing to the bank to get them to refute this.

Well done if you're still reading this pathetic, boring and annoying saga... We're going to take them to the Financial Ombudsman, but I was just wondering if anyone else had had a similar experience. Is this just sheer incompetence or a brazen attempt to get a higher premium out of us?

The same thing has just happened to me and I've complained to the FSO too. How did you get on with the FSO? Mine is a real problem because since I started the life insurance (which was also critical lillness insurance) in 1998 I have had a stroke (in 2007) which I claimed for and Phoenix eventually paid out 9 months later (so they knew I had had a stroke and represented a greater life risk now). The policy converted automatically to life only then. In short Phoenix had every incentive to cancel the policy. When I got the first letter threatening to cancel I phoned them and they admit they told me that I had "several months" before they would cancel. However, just 1 month and 7 days later they wrote to tell me the policy had been cancelled.