Reuniting you with your policy

We appointed Equiniti, a specialist company, to help us trace your latest address by accessing and analysing information held with other companies. You can find out more about the company on their website: https://equiniti.com/uk/

You are right to be suspicious and we appreciate the dilemma our letter presents to our customers. You may find the ‘About Us’ leaflet enclosed in your pack helpful. This tells you more about who we are.

Naturally, you do not have to share any personal information until you are completely satisfied that this is a legitimate enquiry.

The policy is likely to be a life assurance, pension or savings policy, which may provide valuable benefits. We can only offer a few clues about your policy as this letter may not reach you. It’s important for us to protect our customers’ personal information and to consider the potential for fraud in these situations.

We appreciate it’s frustrating trying to remember or find details about your previous addresses, but like many financial checks, we need to verify that you are who we think you are. The information you provide will help to confirm this.

Countrywide Assured is well known in the industry for buying life and pension policies from other providers. To date we have bought policies from City of Westminster; Protection Life (formerly Direct Line Life), Tesco Life and Save and Prosper. It’s possible that you may have started your policy with one of these companies. 

We appreciate it can be unsettling when you have given us your new address details and then receive a letter from us asking you to confirm you are a customer. We are carrying out an exercise to check all our customers’ addresses to ensure the records we hold are up to date so it may take longer than usual for us to update your address details.

We will send you a follow-up letter to the address shown at the top of the letter. If after that there is no response, we will assume you are not our policyholder.

There is no cost to you.

We are committed to protecting your information, taking all precautions to keep it secure. Our physical, electronic and managerial processes are regularly monitored to safeguard and secure your information. Please see our privacy policy for more details. 

Having your telephone number can save a lot of time. For example, if we have a question or need to reach you, we can telephone rather than write to you, which can be more efficient. Please be assured we will only use your number to contact you about your policy and not for marketing purposes or pass it on to another company. Please see how we use your personal data.

To help confirm you are the policyholder, we’ll need some information from you, such as a policy number, your previous address, as partially shown on your letter and your telephone number.

If your name has changed from the one shown at the top of the covering letter, we will need proof of this change, so please send a certified copy of one of the following documents, depending on the reason for the name change:   

1. Due to MARRIAGE or CIVIL PARTNERSHIP: certified copies of your Marriage/Civil Partnership Certificate, plus an original or certified copy of your Passport or Driving Licence.
2. Due to DIVORCE: certified copies of your Decree Absolute/Dissolution Order, your Passport or Driving Licence and your Birth Certificate if you are using your maiden name.
3. Due to CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCE(S): certified copy of your Deed Poll.

If the documents are not available, please contact us. 

The verification process is simple and straightforward. There are two ways to go through the process:

i. Over the phone
ii. By returning your completed form to us, along with any necessary documents, either by post, using the postage-paid envelope enclosed, or electronically, using our online ‘Contact Us’ form.

We understand your reluctance to post original documents as they are hard to replace if they get lost. On the other hand, we also appreciate the determination and success of identity thieves to access personal information. Because of this, we will accept certified copies of the documents, which must be signed by an independent person who is not related to you or lives at your address.

For added protection, the witness must also provide us with their address and a contact number, which may be used to contact them to confirm your identity. The witness should write on the copy document, ‘I certify that this is a true copy of the original document seen by me’. This should then be signed, dated and the witness should print their name, address and telephone number under the signature.

If the verification process is successful, we will take great pleasure in reuniting you with your policy and the valuable benefits this may provide. We will update our records and send you a confirmation letter.

We apologise for this intrusion and would kindly ask for your help once more. You can either complete and return the enclosed ‘Address Verification Form B’ or call us by using the telephone number shown at the top of the letter.

If you choose to return the form, please tick the box ‘Policyholder unknown at this address’. Then return the form using the postage-paid envelope provided or by uploading it via our online Contact form.

Thank you.

We are very sorry for your loss and kindly ask you to get in touch by calling us on the telephone number shown at the top of the letter enclosed in the mailing pack.

Alternatively, you can return 'Address Verification Form B' either using the postage-paid envelope provided or by uploading it via our online Contact Form.

There may be some policy benefits to reunite with their beneficiary(ies) or estate.