Press involvement

scarlet-pimpernel

Does anyone have any experience of involving the press in a consumer watchdog way when having trouble with an insurance company disputing a claim? I will not go in to details but feel that a particular large company is using its might to take advantage of my 92 year old mother. Probably hoping for her to pass away before the matter is settled!

dunstonh

The press sometimes take an interest in cases like this. Usually, however, you have had to at least put a complaint in and gone through that proceedure. One assumes you have already done this and gone to the FOS and had no success there, hence why you are looking at the media now.

The media often save up stories until they want to pick on a particular company or particular area of financial services.

scarlet-pimpernel

Yes, half way through with the FOS at the moment, having just asked for the case to be referred to an ombudsman after the assigned adjudicator has shown a lack of the required technical expertise to deal with the case. Our evidence has been presented in such a way that we require a good sound technical response from the FOS but none has been forthcoming.

I can't see the ombudsman over-ruling the adjudicator as it would undermine them.

If only I had the money and confidence to take the company to court as I feel our case is very sound.

The company in question has had an action group set up against it dedicated to helping those in problematic situations so that is my next port of call.

The press approach is something to keep up our sleeve as a last resort.

FlameCloud

Depending on the insurer, they will either panic and offer compensation, or tell the paper to go away and threaten them with legal action if they print incorrect info.

Some companies really do not like bad press from claims, others ignore it.

mandarinduck

Stick with the FOS for the time being. It's not unheard of for them to overrule an adjudicator (I've seen on it the odd case I've worked on) and it does make it harder for them to review the case if other things are going on/changing in the background.

However, if you felt you HAD to do something else in the meantime you could consider writing to the chairman or executive office of the company. Many companies have teams that deal with companies that have gone in at that level and they are dealt with extremely urgently and senstively (as all complaints should be but unfortunately in the real world that's not always the case). A well worded letter which is polite but firm (not rude or aggressive or threatening) may get your case reviewed at a higher level and may provide a satisfactory outcome.

scarlet-pimpernel

mandarinduck wrote: »

you could consider writing to the chairman or executive office of the company.

I tried this before involving the FOS and the immediate reply was conciliatory, but after that (no rudeness from me) the chairman's right hand man made such ridiculous statements they made us laugh out loud. These statements were duly pased on to the FOS with the expectation that they would find them as ludicrous as we did. However, they seem to have agreed! Any court of law would reject them immediately. We, of course, cannot afford a court case but I did hope the FOS would operate in a similar equal handed way.

scarlet-pimpernel

Just tieing up some loose ends. The ombudsman eventially found in our favour and we got everything we were asking for but it was a close run thing. Photographic evidence sent to the adjudicator made our case unignorable.

It took about 2 years but was worth sticking in there.