Aviva Medios Healthcare - are we being treated fairly?

alanjg1

Hello to anyone who is still involved in this.
I wondered if any potential action is now dead or is it still ongoing?
Thanks in advance.

02Jim

There was a lot of activity at the beginning & over quite a long time but then the various initiators of the thread eventually disappeared from the site. I never mananged to quite get to the bottom of why they abruptly ended their participation & I was unable to contact any of them. Who knows? If you read through the thread from the beginning you will understand more.

I have kept my policy as I have little alternative - I was hoping someone with more experience than me would start a class action which I would have been keen to join but this hasn't happened.

Aviva is a big company & can do much as they please, especially with a small privileged group who might appear to be able to afford private healthcare. 'The government' might say what's wrong with the NHS - I wonder how many of this new lot lot rely on that!

Look at my post 16/02/2017 when I was more involved. Reading it now, it would appear I was much more on it.

Anyone have alternative health insurance policies which are better than Aviva? I have been with them for sometime & getting older like everyone else so now have some ongoing conditions.

Thanks,

02Jim

Just2019

I am here and still keen. I am finding it hard to use this site (just not good with technology) but alerts are sent to me so will do my best to engage. I think most other people have lost interest (found alternative cover) and left.

pmq

O2Jim,
You said in a posting from November 2016 that you had spoken with paulmayo who claimed to be good at dealing with these things and wanted to get some group action going. What came of that or was he just another waster?

Just2019

I did speak with Paul Mayo but 1) I didn't find this site until the end of 2019 so not me in Nov 2016  2) Paul was great but sadly he has moved on.  It is possible he may engage if there was sufficient interest in pursuing the matter but I think he said he had found alternative cover and he thought the thread and 'died'.  I have really had to struggle to reply to you - this site made me change my password (something changed on 6 Feb this year) then I couldn't find my way back to this section.  They really don't make it easy for us old folk!  What is your position in this matter?

02Jim

See my post 24th Jan 2020.
My thoughts are what happened to the original group who set up this forum, but then just disappeared into the ether - did they get paid off my Aviva, or given a better deal, but had to sign a non disclosure agreement?
As I say they just disappeared without any explanation? Why?

Just2019

Since most were complaining about cost, my guess is they moved to other providers.  No one offered a better product then the Medios (when it first came to the UK and was underwritten by OHRA) but now Aviva underwrite and administer it, it is not nearly as competitive.  I think I saw somewhere that someone got a pay out but  I may have been dreaming or reading about another matter somewhere.   Maybe if the 'original group' still receive these alerts of comment on the forum, they will come back?

fred246

Just keep the premiums in your bank account. When you need to be seen just run to the front of the queue shouting "I've got cash. See me first!"

02Jim

Tried to make contact with some of the original group but no response - not even 'we've done our best but the system is against us & we have to accept that there is no sense in trying to go further'. I just found that rather strange?

matoaka

Lockdown and old times sake caused a forum revisit. 

Those hurt by Aviva deserve an explanation. 

That aside, policyholders have to move on. The Financial Ombudsman Service (‘FOS’) let them down. FOS dispenses rough justice by being both investigator and judge. Much worse, it lacks transparency and hides under the excuse of “confidentiality”. Lack of skills can also cause it to mislead accidentally, as occurred in this case. Unfortunately, other Authorities did nothing to correct FOS’s mistakes. Only the Court route was left for policyholders. But costs can go to millions if judgements are appealed to the highest level. Plus, litigation never offers certain outcomes.

So, what went wrong with FOS?   

Its investigation was misdirected and flawed. Instead of focusing on Aviva’s newly launched Medios policy, FOS focused on a Dutch policy of the same name, which Aviva had inherited from a corporate acquisition. But that original Dutch policy had been discontinued. Instead, Aviva chose to promote a product it felt more orientated to the UK market. Holders of the original Dutch policy felt let down and various criticising News Articles were published.

None of this is news to past readers of this Forum. FOS messed up and made a holder of the discontinued Dutch policy a lead complainant. Unfortunately, that lead complainant wrongly believed the Dutch policy had continued unchanged and wholly ignored Aviva’s new policy. The result was to send FOS in the wrong direction. The problem was what flowed from FOS’s wrong turn and misdirection, which will now be explained.

On 13 December 2013 a legally competent Ombudsman issued her Final Decision.  As in her Preliminary Decision, she referred to overarching promises made to induce the policy’s purchase. In particular, she focused on the Dutch policy having been marketed as a “policy for life”. She ruled the policy had not been withdrawn and therefore the offering of a comparable alternative was not relevant - as she was not fully aware of the actual facts that had occurred.  Otherwise everything else was a commercial judgement as the policy was annually renewable. Compensation was given only because of the flawed presentation of 2012’s premium increase.

So, the key was what overarching promises were made to induce Aviva’s new policy purchase as commercial judgement otherwise dominated. Certainly, except by coincidence, not the ones made to induce purchase of the discontinued Dutch policy!

However, FOS was not going to redirect the lead Ombudsman to refocus on a different contract. That would have been an extraordinary admission of a mistake.  So, all that happened was for that same wrongly directed ruling to be applied, without change, as quickly as possible in order to reduce FOS’s reportable complaint load.  

 Yes, an apology was given for misinforming that the complained about policy was being investigated when it had been the discontinued Dutch policy that had in fact been investigated.  

Other FOS apologies also followed, including an acknowledgement that the culprit Adjudicator had been “GIVEN FEEDBACK”!

Could the result have been different if the Adjudicator and FOS had got it right, is an unknown. Once, the lead Ombudsman ruling had been issued, it was all about the policy being an annually renewable one and therefore a decision for Aviva’s commercial judgement. The matter of overarching promises was entirely ignored. It was and is never in FOS’s interests to put aside a Final Judgment. It was too much to expect FOS to then evaluate the overarching promises of the actual Aviva policy that was at fault.

How bad is Aviva? It had to be aware of the wrong policy focus. Yet cynics will say, an insurer will do whatever it can to minimise losses. As for FOS, rough justice is never a surprise whichever side one takes. Unfortunately, no institution was willing to initiate Court action for this policy, such as is presently taking place with virus insurance claims.

Some you win and some you don’t when one relies upon a rough justice system. One has to move on. You can’t let someone else’s wrongdoing cause you to eat yourself up and that is the reason for spending time to provide this explanation.