Pruhealth scrapping its free/discounted gym loophole in November. Discussion

Charliezoo

fartington wrote: »

2/ Are Pru intitled to do this? If we all put a case to the Financial Ombudsman, Pru will have to pay £300 per review - that will mess up their sneaky plan. I plan to appeal, I have kept to platinum in order to keep my premiums down and have free gym membership, thats what I signed up for, and I expect to keep it.

I'm planning to complain but how would I go about putting a case to the Financial Ombudsman?

I've got friends who are equally as upset with this dramatic and unfair change and we'll all like to put forward complaints.

I don't think PruHealth realise how much the new T&Cs are actually going to change people's lives for the worse. There are policy holders out there who never thought they could afford to be a member of a gym and rely on it for their health and wellbeing and it seems so cruel to take this away from them.

QQuaver

humphreysj wrote: »

I have just recieved my letter saying that i will only get a 25% discount on my gym membership when i renew in febuary. I will not be renewing in this case, but i am wondering when everybody else has the price change come in?

I got the same letter, but it says my prices will change upon my renewal in April 2010. But my renewal is October:huh:
Why are they changing my renewal date by 6 months?

There's more details here: http://www.pruhealth.co.uk/gymfaqs

Charliezoo

Quote from the website -

We are making this change so that more of our members can benefit from subsidised rates with our gym partners regardless of their Vitality status.
We feel the changes are simpler for our members, and continue to represent excellent value for those who attend the gym on a regular basis and build up their Vitality points over the year.

Right so they're making these changes for OUR benefit now???

chandla

Just received my letter informing me of the new changes. I have been on the pru health discount gym membership now for over 3 years and new the day would come when they stop the gravy train so to speak.

One of the main problems for me was getting to platinum every year and usually in the month or 2 before me renewal i would have to bust a gut to get enough points to maintain platinum.

At least now i know in September it doesn't matter how many points i have, the deal will be gone so therefore no need for me to bust a gut and do what ive done in previous years.

Ive made the most of this deal because ive been on it for 3 years, i can remember when i my pru health policy was £3.83 per month and i didn't even have to pay the £8 because the gym membership was completely free if i you was platinum.

However i feel sorry for those people who have only been on this a year, busted a gut in there 1st year to get to platinum status, had to fork out the higher payments for the pru health policy and higher payments for gym etc whilst they were getting there, then when they finally got to platinum status got there policy premium and gym membership reduced, the goal posts are being moved and pru health are taking the ball home.

I made an enquiry as to how much my gym membership is privately and its £66 pm, currently i am paying £12.27 pru health + £8 gym per month so paying £20.27 in total, so £45 cheaper then the gym charge. In September when the new terms come in, i would have to pay £49.50 + my pru health policy approx £15 ish.

Now that i know this, i won't be busting a gut to maintain my platinum status, quite contnet to drop to bronze be bacause i will be cancelling my policy as soon as my £8 gym deal ends and i am sure there are many more who will be doing the same.

brownbabygirl

i hope MANY people pull out and they go BUST

350186

Well, I agree with the last post insofar it had to happen eventually.

I've had three years of nice cheap health insurance and free gym membership, especially as Platinum is so easy to obtain.

However, working in Health Insurance as I do, I knew that the business model itself was not sustainable, which is why no other companies have done the same deal.

If it made money it would have been copied.

With regards taking things up with the Ombudsman, what have you got to complain about? The contract is annually renewable and the Ombudsman will tell you that your Insurer can do what it likes at renewal, so long as it tells you in advance. You then have the choice to renew or not.

If you want cheap health insurance find someone in the civil service that uses the Benenden Health Service and get them to introduce you as a freind, especially as the scope of the cover has now changed and non civil servants can now join. And it's only £1.50 per week.

bargainseeker100

The annoying thing was Pru health's slogan 'whypayforthegym.com' when they started - this website disappeared just after I joined in late 2007. Their boast was that they had joined up with a South African company who had successfully delivered this integrated business model. well I wonder who the business consultants for this project were - like a lot of so called business models from consultants, the model is short term, boom and bust based and not sustainable, casuing more stress and ill health at the end (sums up the government, banking & insurance sectors and a lot of other things doesn't it !!) :mad:

fartington

well...I see it from the point of view that health insurance is long-term, you do not chop and change if you can help it, because of pre-existing necessities - so whilst they are able to change the terms and conditions, we have been recruited with the long-term expectation that the terms would remain, or else many wouldnt have joined. Its not a question of using benefits while you can, thats not how health insurance works unfortunately.. We could equally say that we were cynically recruited on one set of terms and a radical overhaul was always pre-planned once enough customers were hooked. Dont tell me they havent benefited from way more customers than they would have got if they didnt offer the deal, they want it both ways...

Now, if each case costs them £300 to be reviewed by Ombudsman and you multiply that by the amount of disgruntled customers - you can see it doesnt let them off the hook and gives them more of an issue to deal with - it may tip the balance in our favour. we may be able to negotiate a better deal with this threat, its worth a try

dvs

I'm quite annoyed about this. When I first joined Pru Health, the gym was free for a period. Then it was dependent on how many times you visited each week, then they changed it depend on your status. Now it's just going to be a general discount.

I think Pru Health have got this wrong and should look at this again. The original scheme was open to abuse as people could just use the other facilities to sign in (even MSE Martin suggested this as a loophole). However, it had advantages in making you visit the gym more often. The current scheme is good for Platinum members because it was so cheap - perhaps too cheap. I have been receiving free Cannons/Nuffield membership under the current scheme and I wouldn't have minded paying a bit towards it. Now it's going to be £45 a month - which is quite an increase from nothing.

I suspect an awful lot of people will cancel their policies on renewal as this was probably the main reason they had Pru Health. I don't renew until end of September so perhaps by the Pru Health may have had a change of heart.

Charliezoo

A couple I'm friends with are currently paying £14 per month for PruHealth with the gym on platinum. The Nuffield they're members of will be £62 + cost of premium when they come to renew but just down the road is a David Lloyd with far, far better facilities. They popped in today and sorted out a joint corporate deal which is £60 per month with 3 months free. Apparently the club says they've had loads of enquiries from unhappy Pruhealth/Nuffield members.

Its a shame they're going to have to pay significantly more than what they were before but the deal PruHealth are offering is simply not competitive enough.