Not quite medical insurance but closely related:
Obviously when gainfully employed I had a number of credit cards and when illness struck (heart problems) I had some time off work. Quite a period in fact and claimed on my insurance cover. Payments were duly made by the insurers. In fact they do not, as implied, pay off your cards but they do maintain your monthly minimum payments. On return to work I took up making my own payments again. About six months or so later one of the card companies wrote to tell me that they had sought and found a "better deal for customers and accordingly my insurance would henceforth be with XYZ company".
XYZ Insurers wrote to welcome me as a customer and assured me of their best attentions at all times and enclosed their telephone help line number etc.
A year later I was "retired" due to ill health and I again claimed against my various insurers. All paid up with the exception of XYZ Insurance Co Ltd who weaselled their way out of paying by claiming that I had failed to inform them of the pre-existing condition. I took the matter up with the credit card company who said it was not their problem and would I please pay them. I wrote pointing out that when they took over the business XYZ Insurance Co Ltd had presumably performed the usual "due diligence" on the risks they had accepted and that since their predecessors had paid out for this condition they must have known about it when they accepted my premiums. Took it first to their MD who said Foxtrot Oscar so I went to the Insurance Ombudsman who, after 6 months of "investigation" said that he agreed that I had failed to notify the insurers of my condition ~ he did agree that it was clearly shown in the files that they had taken over but that the obligation was on me to have informed them ~ despite their not having asked or sent me any new proposal forms ~ simply a letter saying they had taken over the policy lock, stock and barrel.
No amount of argument would sway them so I refused to pay and we ended up in the County Court ~ who upheld the claim against me "despite having some sympathy with my case" but pointed out that my argument was with the insurers and not the credit card company who had arbitrarily appointed them thus my "debt" to the bank still had to be paid.
Further negotiation by me persuaded the bank to accept that my case had some merit and that I had tried to make sensible provision for covering the debt in the event of ill health. This coupled with a threat to "Go to the Press" got them to waive all accrued interest and we finally settled on a figure of 50% in full and final payment of the debt.
The moral is "Do not trust insurance companies" ~ they are there to make money, not to help the suckers who pay their premiums.
It gives me great pleasure to see that the bank concerned has now all but collapsed (Yes ~ it was City Bank of America) and that the insurance company have long since gone out of business.
