Insurance Cancelled without notice

metal675

Apologies in advance for a long thread.

I am looking for some genuine advice regarding my situation regarding health insurance.

I had a private health insurance which I renewed on the phone in January this year and got a email confirmation from the insurance provider that it has been renewed and I received the new plan documents.

Few days ago, my online access and the access to insurance app stopped working. When I queried they said my policy is being shown as inactive.

Upon a series of phone calls and investigation, the insurance company admitted there was an error in renewal and the admin team made a mistake due to which the policy was never renewed correctly - although I received new policy docs and confirmation leading me to believe I have an active insurance. They did not take any direct debit payments from Jan.

They said they can reinstate the policy but I have to pay all the missed payments from Jan till now. My argument was that I never knew I don't have an active policy and was always under the impression that I have an active policy as I confirmed to me on the phone, got new policy certificate emailed to me when I renewed after accepting a new quote. All of renewal was done on phone.

It was their mistake and effectively I was without insurance unknowingly. The insurance company did not let me know in writing that my policy is cancelled.

They said they can waive off some amount, but I will still have to pay majority of payments from Jan. 

My point was this was not my mistake and if I had a genuine claim this would have been worse. It's like you call an insurance company for a car accident and car insurance company tells sorry you don't have insurance with us due to an error.

Any suggestions or advise please on what I should do?

Thanks

DullGreyGuy

metal675 said:

Apologies in advance for a long thread.

I am looking for some genuine advice regarding my situation regarding health insurance.

I had a private health insurance which I renewed on the phone in January this year and got a email confirmation from the insurance provider that it has been renewed and I received the new plan documents.

Few days ago, my online access and the access to insurance app stopped working. When I queried they said my policy is being shown as inactive.

Upon a series of phone calls and investigation, the insurance company admitted there was an error in renewal and the admin team made a mistake due to which the policy was never renewed correctly - although I received new policy docs and confirmation leading me to believe I have an active insurance. They did not take any direct debit payments from Jan.

They said they can reinstate the policy but I have to pay all the missed payments from Jan till now. My argument was that I never knew I don't have an active policy and was always under the impression that I have an active policy as I confirmed to me on the phone, got new policy certificate emailed to me when I renewed after accepting a new quote. All of renewal was done on phone.

It was their mistake and effectively I was without insurance unknowingly. The insurance company did not let me know in writing that my policy is cancelled.

They said they can waive off some amount, but I will still have to pay majority of payments from Jan. 

My point was this was not my mistake and if I had a genuine claim this would have been worse. It's like you call an insurance company for a car accident and car insurance company tells sorry you don't have insurance with us due to an error.

Any suggestions or advise please on what I should do?

Thanks

You should pay obviously, you have not suffered any detriment and in principle the monies would still be in your account as they never took them. In principle you are better off as you'd have been earning interest on the premium payments that you should have paid over but were still in your account. Also is a lesson to check your account more closely. 

metal675 said:
 It's like you call an insurance company for a car accident and car insurance company tells sorry you don't have insurance with us due to an error.

Thats not how it works, they pay the claim and they send you a letter of indemnity which is basically one of the very few ways to avoid a Driving Without Insurance charge. It doesn't happen often but had 2 cases in my claims days 

Aylesbury_Duck

Don't worry about what might have happened. It didn't, and had it done so, I expect you would have legitimate cause to expect the policy to cover you.

I assume their point is that you're buying an annual policy at a price of x, and paying x/12 in monthly instalments, therefore the amount you owe remains the same.  Rather than buying monthly cover for each month.

If that's the case, you don't have a right to waived payments, so either take what they've offered as a discount, or complain further and hope they offer more and don't retract the offer they have made.

metal675

Thanks both of you for your suggestions.

My argument was - why pay retrospectively for a period when I did not have cover, as they said the insurance was not renewed correctly.

It was not like the direct debit payments failed.

I am trying to ascertain if there is any case with the insurance company, ombudsman or any other legal recourse or should i just pay up with some discount.

sheramber

Since it was their mistake the company would most likely have paid out a claim.

You  didn’t need to claim so don’t know that they would not have paid out

You are also at fault for not noticing that the payments hadn’t been taken.

If you don’t pay you could run the risk of them cancelling the policy due to non payment.

DullGreyGuy

metal675 said:

Thanks both of you for your suggestions.

My argument was - why pay retrospectively for a period when I did not have cover, as they said the insurance was not renewed correctly.

It was not like the direct debit payments failed.

I am trying to ascertain if there is any case with the insurance company, ombudsman or any other legal recourse or should i just pay up with some discount.

You did have cover, there was just an error processing the renewal which when spotted was corrected and cover retrospectively restored. 

If you dont want cover for that period then tell them to leave it as not renewed and get a new business quote starting from today but naturally any conditions you've developed since first buying the insurance are unlikely to be covered. 

Aylesbury_Duck

metal675 said:

Thanks both of you for your suggestions.

My argument was - why pay retrospectively for a period when I did not have cover, as they said the insurance was not renewed correctly.

It was not like the direct debit payments failed.

I am trying to ascertain if there is any case with the insurance company, ombudsman or any other legal recourse or should i just pay up with some discount.

But you would have been covered, you had what one could reasonably assume was an active policy.  And even then, they've insured you for a year and priced it accordingly.  Their risk exposure hasn't changed, if my assumption is correct.  

It's your choice what to do next, but to not pay risks them cancelling the policy which you would have to declare to another insurer if asked.  Are you confident you can find an insurer you're happy with that will insure you if they know you had a policy cancelled?

You could try pushing their complaints policy and the ombudsman if you reach deadlock, but I suspect the offer they've made will be viewed as reasonable.  What loss have you suffered?  As pointed out above, you're better off by the sum of the small discount offered and some small interest in payments not made for a few months.

Cutting to the chase: How much are you after?

PHK

metal675 said:

Thanks both of you for your suggestions.

My argument was - why pay retrospectively for a period when I did not have cover, as they said the insurance was not renewed correctly.

It was not like the direct debit payments failed.

I am trying to ascertain if there is any case with the insurance company, ombudsman or any other legal recourse or should i just pay up with some discount.

Just pay up, you can see ombudsman decisions on the FOS website and they all say that the  insurance company should put you in the position you were before their mistake. That is your policy renewed when it should have done. That means you'll need to pay what you would have paid had they renewed, less any compensation or waiver they give. Which won't be much because you didn't suffer any loss. 

MobileSaver

metal675 said:

My argument was - why pay retrospectively for a period when I did not have cover,

That's the flaw in your argument. You did have cover, or rather, you would have had cover if you had needed to make a claim and so you are in the same position as if the renewal had been correctly processed.

born_again

So while they have admitted it is their error & offered to waive some of the cost. Despite the fact you would have been covered.
Where is your admission of error, for not noticing that 3 or 4 payments were not taken?

TELLIT01

If you don't pay the insurer is likely to cancel the policy and leave you searching for a new provider.  That may prove difficult if you have any pre-existing conditions.  If you had needed to claim it's entirely likely that the insurer would have put their hands up and said it was their error and paid up.  However, health insurance isn't cheap, so you should have noticed that there was more in your bank account than you expected.

My advice would be to pay up, accepting any reduction you can negotiate.