Legal & General (L&G) has hit back at claims it has been failing its former private medical insuranc...
Legal & General (L&G) has hit back at claims it has been failing its former private medical insurance (PMI) customers as reports emerged of "serious and large-scale" administrative problems at Axa PPP healthcare, writes Peter Carvill.
L&G refuted the allegations in last month's COVER that poor administration on its part was resulting in delays transferring PMI policies to Axa PPP, and that it had not informed advisers before telling policyholders.
Tessa Webster, customer services director for L&G, denied staff levels had led to poor administration: "We've reduced them in line with the book reduction but it is monitored on a weekly basis."
Webster also said the company had written to IFAs first. "We wrote to as many advisers as possible," he said. "The database, from memory, was thousands of brokers. We looked at the people producing substantial business and called them personally. There may be one or two policies with data missing or clarification, likely around corporate schemes. I'd say it was a handful compared to the volumes of business they are dealing with."
As Webster denied problems with L&G's administration, one IFA laid the blame with Axa PPP. Paul Walker, managing director for Essential Health, said standards of administration at the insurer were 'non-existent'.
He said: "From where I'm sitting, the majority of the problems lie with Axa PPP, which has some serious and large-scale problems."
Agreeing with Walker, Roy McLoughlin, senior partner at Master Adviser, said: "It has taken over these policies and there are many problems. The transfer is not smooth. I've heard on the grapevine from other insurers that it's chaotic."
In response, Ben Faulkner, press officer at Axa PPP, said: "We have experienced problems in transferring a small minority of the L&G PMI business, resulting in a delay in some cases. We have taken steps to address this to ensure that details are sent to intermediaries in a timely fashion, and we will continue to actively monitor it going forward."
