Six million Brits caught out by ignoring small print
Over half of all UK adults fail to read the small print when purchasing financial or electrical products, a survey has revealed.The research by price comparison website Go Compare shows that six million people have had difficulties after not paying attention to terms and conditions.One of the main products where this problem is particularly notable is when people find that they are not covered adequately on their insurance policies.The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) receives many complaints from people whose insurers refuse to pay out on a claim, but many of these claims are void as people have not checked what they are protected against and what they are not.Chief FOS ombudsman, Walter Merricks, said on BBC's Watchdog programme that one million people alone are paying into critical illness insurance policies which are effectively invalid - a fifth of people who take out the insurance. Mr Merricks said: "Of the products we cover at the ombudsman service, critical illness continues to be one of the areas that causes us most concern. The majority of cases we see are when a claim has been turned down because the insurer says there has been non-disclosure on the part of the policyholder."There appears to be a real gap between the information consumers think they have been asked to provide and what the insurer expects the consumer to have disclosed."
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