Readers’ forum: Compensation for late payment of life policy proceeds

A lady who died well over ten years ago had taken out a life policy for the benefit of her son.

It has come to light that the life assurance company never made the payment to the son and it is now offering interest as compensation. I understand that the industry standard for this is simple interest at 8%.

The son completely relies on a stockbroker to deal with money matters and would certainly have paid the insurance funds to the broker to invest along with the funds already held on his behalf had he received the money in a timely manner.

The capital return on his having done this would very likely have yielded far more than the anticipated interest payment and it is hoped that it will be possible to negotiate a larger payment from the company to recognise this.

How would an ex gratia payment in...