A 69 year old widow has been left in shock after a life insurance company wrote to her husband asking him if he would be interested in taking out a policy.
The man in question passed away over four years ago, just two weeks after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
When the letter from Sun Life Direct dropped onto her mat addressed to her late husband, the Haverhill woman was intrigued and opened it.
She was shocked to find that it was a letter attempting to persuade her husband to take out a life insurance policy ‘to protect those you love.’
She found the timing of the letter especially poignant as had her husband still been alive they would have been approaching their Golden wedding anniversary, celebrating 50 years of marriage.
The letter in question was addressed to her husband and read: “Could you spare 23p a day for those you love?” before going into the details and benefits of various life insurance policies.
The widow who opened the offending letter addressed to her dead husband said that the letter caused her extreme distress.
“At the time when I got the letter it upset me. I sat down and cried my eyes out,” she said.
“I can’t understand how it came to here because he’s never lived in Suffolk. He was from London,” she added.
Her daughter, who also lives in Haverhill was equally distraught by the life insurance company’s insensitive mistake and decided to tackle them over the phone.
To her shock and surprise, instead of issuing a heartfelt apology, she was greeted rudely and the company were very abrupt with her when she phoned up.
“I said ‘how stupid can people be? You have offended so many people with this letter’, and they put the phone down on me,” she said.
To add insult to injury, following the mistake and the unsatisfactory phone call, Sun Life Direct went on to send the family a survey asking how they felt their complaint was dealt with.
“What got me with the Sun Life letter was that they also had a survey asking us how we felt how they dealt with it, which was quite disgusting,” said the daughter of the deceased man.”
The widow’s daughter in law also complained to Sun Life Direct and her approach resulted in a slightly more satisfactory outcome.
Following her complaint, Sun Life Direct sent the distressed widow a letter of apology and a bunch of flowers to show their regret at the unfortunate incident.
A second company, SAV Credit, who had supplied the incorrect details to Sun Life Direct, also wrote a letter of apology.
Having received the apology the family are satisfied that the company has made up for their mistake and they now wish to put the incident behind them and move on from this stressful event.
Sun Life Direct will no doubt be keeping a closer eye on their mailing lists from now on to avoid further upset and embarrassment for them and their potential customers.
