Health Insurance Just found out health insurance cancelled 15 mths ago

Mrs Vimes

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Hi,

we have just this morning found out that our health insurance was cancelled over a year ago. Aviva are claiming that they sent us a letter at the time saying that it was being cancelled for non-payment of premia on 1 Sept 2015 but we never got any such letter. It was being paid by my husband's client at the time and we would have taken over payments if we had known.

We are aged 40 and 43 with 4 children and have always had health insurance but rarely used it.

What can we do?
 
It was being paid by my husband's client at the time and we would have taken over payments if we had known.

I don't understand that. Someone else was paying your health insurance for you? It's risky to do that.

Obviously, you should take out your insurance again immediately, probably with Aviva.
Then argue about it later.

Have you had a claim refused?

Make a written submission and then you could contact the FSO. However, it's hard to see any grounds for complaint if you didn't pay.

If you are a long term customer and if you have a claim, they might cover it on an ex-gratia basis.

Of course, you can also go after the client if they had a contractual obligation to pay.

Brendan
 
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Hi Brendan,

thanks for your response.

The client had a number of employees and put my husband and his family on their group policy, obviously was risky, would now recommend any employee to check directly with their insurer whether their employer had stopped playing. It was all done through a broker who is now saying he had no obligation to contact us when payment stopped and the insurer "would have written to you". They didn't, though.

Fortunately we have not needed to claim, but will we now have to serve new waiting periods? Will we be loaded under lifetime community rating for the rest of our lives?

I'm not sure the client is a mark at this stage so that avenue is probably closed.

My problem really is that we were not contacted and told to continue payments ourselves or the policy would be cancelled. Even if they did send a letter as they say they did, is one letter sufficient?

Should they not have written separately to me or is there no protection for the spouse who is not the named policy holder?
 
Sounds as if the client/company just got fed up paying for your policy? Did he continue to pay for his other employees and cease paying yours? Ask the insurer for a copy of the cancellation letter sent. It would have been sent to you once cancelled not the company. An insurer is not obliged to make contact with you to get you to pay outstanding premiums but is once policy was cancelled. Did they get instruction from the company or they cancelled because of the outstanding premiums. Ask them to reinstate the policy because you didnt know but you would have to pay the 14 months premiums outstanding. To save money you could cancel the 4 children and add them back on to the policy from now but they would have to serve their waiting periods again.If you weren't paying any money towards the policy there could be benefit in kind owing too.
 
This sounds like a real mess. There is no advantage in a group policy. All policies must be made available to all customers.

I don't think it affects your lifetime community rating as you presumably had insurance for many years.

Send a letter to the client.
Send a letter to the broker.

Then send a letter with their responses to the insurance company.

There is a strong argument that non-smoking, healthy 40 year olds are paying way over the odds for health insurance. Given that you have not had to claim, then you probably have not lost out.

Check out the lifetime community rating issue. If it has permanently increased the cost of your medical insurance, then you will need to progress it with the company and maybe with the FSO.

But usually issues like these are sorted on an ex-gratia basis, especially if you offer to pay the insurance in retrospect and you have no indication of an illness in the meantime.

Brendan
 
There might have been an advantage in a group policy if there was a cheaper premium or waivers of waiting periods.

Ring the insurer and offer to pay the premiums back to the last payment date. I would be very surprised if they don't facilitate you. In a group policy, the company have control over who is to be included or excluded from the scheme.

Previous credit of years of service would be taken into consideration for lifetime community rating. It may be appealing to just start a new policy and not pay back premiums but be wary of the effect that future illnesses could have due to waiting periods etc.
 
Thank you both for your responses.

I will ring the HIA to find out whether the lifetime community rating will be a problem - we both had insurance for many years before turning 35 so hopefully not.

We have had no on-going health issues fortunately except for my husband's depression/anxiety which is generally treated in the public system anyway so no advantage there.

It looks like we will probably end up just starting a new policy and hope no-one gets sick in the next 26 weeks. If someone did for example display cancer symptoms 4 months after taking out a policy, could they avail of the health insurance after a further 2 months?

I really think trying to go after the client or the broker will give me nothing but grief and high blood pressure and I will end up fighting yet another financial institution, not sure I can cope with any more of them!
 
Having looked at HIA website I think we should be okay on the lifetime community rating - assuming we can get together proof of our prior insurance.

Aviva/Irish Life still haven't issued us a copy of the cancellation letter they supposedly sent in Sept 2015 which has me reluctant to go with them again.

It seems that if we start a new policy now we may have to serve 5 year waiting time for pre-existing conditions. This seems very unfair when we did have cover for most of the last 5 years.
 
Either pay your back premiums to maintain continuous cover so you do not have to reserve waiting periods or call one of the other insurers to request your initial waiting periods to be waived for a new policy.You run the risk of requiring to make a claim on the policy and then finding out that you have a preexisting condition that could have been avoided.Im cautious about that even though the prospect of not having to pay for a premium for a time where there was no claims is obviously appealing.
 
Thanks Stevekl,

Unfortunately Aviva/Irish Life have refused to accept back-payments and have also failed to send the copy of the letter they allegedly sent us cancelling the policy or the proof we requested that we were ever covered.

Makes it a little easier to choose our new policy now that we know who to avoid.

Meantime we have found proof that we were covered from 2000 to 2010 anyway so sorted for the lifetime community rating!
 
Went with Laya and got them to waive the 6mth waiting period. They wouldn't shift on the 5 years, but we have nothing pre-existing anyway so should be okay.

Thanks Stevekl for telling me this was possible.
 
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