Saturday, January 19, 2008

The Problem with some Insurance Company

When administrative hiccups happened within the Insurance Company, the customers will usually blame the adviser first and not the company.
The adviser cannot push the blame back to the insurance company because when a plan from this company is recommend, we must give them trust on the reliability of the company's administration.

As a result, it not only gave us extra work and reduce our productivity, it also projected badly for ourselves as if we did not do our job as an adviser. There are many instances where i can share. Let me give you one that happened to me last week.


Summary
My client went hospital for a gastroscopy in Jan 05 for gastric ulcer and went through 4 sessions of outpatient observations. He was fully recovered and discharged after 2 months.
He took up a medical insurance on 9th Oct 07, was sent a questionaire in Dec 07, and was imposed with exclusion for gastric ulcer in Jan08. I appealed for him as he was fully discharged over 2 years ago and with doctor's report to prove that.


What the Insurance Company did?
The insurance company sent a letter to say that the report was 2 years ago and want him to go through another gastroscopy to prove that he had fully recovered. The appeal fails.


My client's reaction
1) He was disappointed that he insurance took so long for underwriting and till today not settled.
2) He was confused. He had the medical report to prove that he was already fully discharged and not necessary to go for any following up. He don't understand why he was told to go for another scope.
3) He was not happy with the failed appeal and blame me that I did not help him enough.


My reaction
1) This is just a medical insurance. I recommended him this plan out of care, not for profit. Yet it wasted me a whole lot of time and effort and having to face an angry customer.
2) The insurance company simply took their own sweet time in the underwriting. I'm being blamed by the customer for being slow instead.
3) It is stupid to tell customer to go for another scope to prove that he had recovered. People go for scope only if we suspect there are some problem.


Anyway, I'd advise my client to go back to the doctor to get another memo to prove that he had fully recovered. It will take at least another 1 months. Haizzz...... (No wonder many "Agents" don't recommend Medical Insurances)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

quit NTUC lah.

Anonymous said...

It's not wise to quit.

Khiat Han Hwee Adrian said...

Such thing can happen to any Insurance company.

Insurance advisers are always in between the company and client.

If company do not provide proper support, the adviser is the one who have to face the client and explain.
Client don't care whose problem it is, they only want to get things done.

Anonymous said...

adrian,

Just focus on what you do without exhausting yourself with unrewarding activity. Shield plan is a must but not necessary spending too much in it due to the insurance adviser's hazard like what you have experienced.

Take care of your client by taking care of yourself also.

- Wilfred Ling

Anonymous said...

Send this piece of feedback to your CEO to wake up the underwriter.

The underwriter is simply not up to the job....

Anonymous said...

The new mamngement is focusing on how to cut cost and pay the new senior managers.Where got time to look at your issu?