Life assurance used for nursing fees please advise?

[Nickydonut]

Hello can anyone help i feel like i am going mad? after dealing with a family friends finances who sadly passed away in april (my husband is executor) it was found social services had cashed in the life assurance policy to pay towards nursing care fees as he was self funding. I discovered here that crac stipulates this is one of the assets that cannot be used. However they did use this toward the nursing care fees and had been funded by socail services for the last 6 months as he had reached the 24k limit.
My question is even tho social services have returned the life assurance to the will, in my own mind there would have been 3/4 months where his care would have been paid for from the life asssurance asset before reaching the 24k? if the life assurance hadnt have been there he would have stopped self funding months before? i hope im making sense? Are we within our rights to fight for his family to get this money returned?

Any advice would be welcome

thanks everyone xx

 

[WILLIAMR]

Hello can anyone help i feel like i am going mad? after dealing with a family friends finances who sadly passed away in april (my husband is executor) it was found social services had cashed in the life assurance policy to pay towards nursing care fees as he was self funding. I discovered here that crac stipulates this is one of the assets that cannot be used. However they did use this toward the nursing care fees and had been funded by socail services for the last 6 months as he had reached the 24k limit.
My question is even tho social services have returned the life assurance to the will, in my own mind there would have been 3/4 months where his care would have been paid for from the life asssurance asset before reaching the 24k? if the life assurance hadnt have been there he would have stopped self funding months before? i hope im making sense? Are we within our rights to fight for his family to get this money returned?

Any advice would be welcome

thanks everyone xx

Unfortunately I am unable to locate the article but I did read of a case where a life assurance bond had been cashed in. to pay care home fees.
The family discovered it after the death and complained to the LA.
The LA did reimburse the estate and said it would look at the situation if any more people came forward.
The council did however say that it would be too big a task to look in to every past case and the paperwork may have been destroyed anyway if it was over so many years.
They asked every member of staff on the Care Funding Contributions Teem if they remembered any case where a life assurance policy had been cashed in and nobody came forward.
The other point the LA raised was if they did find a case the beneficiaries may no longer be traceable.

William

 

[nitram]

"...if the life assurance hadnt have been there he would have stopped self funding months before? i hope im making sense? Are we within our rights to fight for his family to get this money returned?..."

I would think that you are within your rights. If somebody makes a financial error which they then admit to they should take all possible steps to place the aggrieved person in the position they would have been had the error not been made.

I'm not sure that trying to recover the funds will be worth the hassle though. The DWP would expect repayment of pension and any other benefits from the person's estate which could lead to all sorts of confusion. Before you proceed do some calculations to find out what amount you would expect to receive from the council and deduct the potential DWP repayment from that.