Critical illness cover consumers being taken advantage of, says bestdealinsurance.co.uk chief exec...
Many people are literally “getting mugged” by providers when it comes to buying critical illness cover says David Thomson, chief executive of bestdealinsurance.co.uk.
He says that consumers looking for critical illness insurance are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous providers who are selling over-priced cover that often offers poor value, and in some cases, no cover at all.
“Some policyholders are literally paying out huge premiums for what amounts to little more than blank pieces of paper,” he adds. The reason, explains Thomson, is all in the small print.
He says that many insurers use non-disclosure of a past or existing medical condition – however tenuous the link to a current claim – as a way of keeping their costs low.
Figures from the Financial Services Ombudsman show that they received 799 complaints in relation to declined critical illness insurance claims for the period April 2005-March 2006, an 11.43% increase on the previous year.
The FSA last year undertook a mystery shopping exercise in relation to critical illness cover which highlighted how companies failed to draw the customer's attention to the importance of disclosing their full medical history.
