Truly awful insurance company

Exeter Friendly Society
★★☆☆☆
1.6
10.0% of users recommend this
  • Ease of Use

  • Customer Service

  • Value For Money

tomby1's review of Exeter Friendly Society

“Truly awful insurance company”

★☆☆☆☆

written by tomby1 on 03/02/2013

Please read this honest review if you are looking to go with this Exeter Family Friendly Insurance.

I had a specialist issue that required an operation and decided to claim through my insurance company. Unfortunately, this claim was denied due to a 'pre-existing' medical issue. Fine, I thought, they must have made a mistake. After a numver of weeks of back and forth trying to work out what was going on and resubmitting further information from my GP on my condition, I found out that my claim was still being rejected due to the fact I had pain in a similar part of my body in the past 2 years.
This would be understandable, if not for the fact I had a pre-existing benign condition that cause me pain in that part of my body. The pain I was seeing the doctor about was due to this and had been diagnosed as such - this was CONFIRMED to Exeter Family Friendly, who quite honestly didn't care.

So, here I am, 2 months down the line, going through the NHS instead because I can't get anywhere with the insurance company I pay for.

Some points to consider if you are considering Exeter Family Friendly;

1) I had my claim rejected by [name removed]. I spoke to 3 other GPs about the issue, providing the same information, who all said she clearly didn't know what she was doing if she was rejecting this claim. If you ever have your claim looked into by [name removed], please ask for an actually competent doctor.

2) I questioned the rejection of my claim and resubmitted further information. This was looked at by [name removed].. who rejected it again. Either Exeter Family Friendly only use one doctor or they don't understand what 2nd medical opinion means. Why would the same doctor accept a claim they have already rejected and are probably paid to do so?

3) I never actually got to speak to the doctor regarding my claim so I couldn't actually explain anything beyond putting it in writing. The complaints procedure was a complete joke and I was told there was basically no point complaining.

4) The call centre staff are fine - friendly and helpful, until you need to make a claim. Everything then becomes extremely slow and if you want to question a claim, they certainly lose their charming demeanor! I'm not the kind of person to get offended by a persons tone of voice but one particular woman I spoke to talked to me like a was dirt on the bottom of her shoe. Nice.

All in all, seriously unimpressed and probably the worst experience I have ever had with a company. I have been thoroughly reasonable through the past 2 months but have simply reached the point where I am completely fed up with this cowboy company.

Exeter_Family_Friendly's Response to tomby1's Review

Written on: 06/02/2013

Dear tomby1,

We are very sorry to hear about your experience and are disappointed that you feel this strongly.

We will do everything we can to rectify your situation; to help us do so please contact our Complaints Handler, on 0300 123 3200 or at [email protected].

We would like to emphasise that as a mutual friendly society with over 85 years of experience, it is very rare for us to receive feedback such as this. Over the last 2 years our customer satisfaction has been rated very highly by consumer group and magazine Which?, in their annual PMI Customer Satisfaction Survey.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Exeter Family Friendly.

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Bestadvice's Response to tomby1's Review

Written on: 22/11/2013

Why did you not get a full understanding of the underwriting on your policy, It clearly states that you are not covered during the first two years for any pre-existing condition. Quite rightly too otherwise their customers would se increases in premiums to cover your treatments costs which are clearly not eligable for claim. Your complaint appears to be unjust and unfair.

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Tomby1's reply to Bestadvice's Comment

Written on: 22/11/2013

Hi,

Unfortunately as you do not know any of the finer details of this particular case, it's difficult to comment on whether it is just or fair.

I actually went through the Appeals process with this and my complaint that my condition was not pre-existing was upheld. I found the lady that processed my case once it got to this point to be excellent and she took all of the documentation she received into account - the reason the issue went as far as it did in the first place was due to the fact Exeter's medical 'professional' (and I use that term loosely) assumed circumstance without seemingly looking at the documents I had provided.

I've actually renewed with Exeter for another year of cover as I was impressed with their higher level complaint handling and appeals procedure, which gives me confidence that in future, if I have to push for the right decision to be made, it will be.

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