When people make complaints about insurance agencies the root cause of the complaint is the “expectation of the client” not being met.
While there are the odd occasions when the Insurance Agency is to blame the main reason we have found are the assumptions made by clients on what they think they should be covered for and how this cover is applied is different to the wording of the insurance policy.
Most people are very price focussed when they are looking for insurance. Meaning people can stumble in to an inferior policy believing that they are comparing the same types and level of cover.
The more you’re covered the more it will cost. The trick is to know what is fluff and can be dropped and what is essential and shouldn’t be dropped.
Many people believe that they are covered for a general issue – eg if they couldn’t work their income protection insurance would pay out. If you can’t work there may be many reasons – redundancy being one. Many clients assume that redundancy is a standard feature of income protection insurance whereas generally you have to have it added on (and pay extra for it).
The only time someone reads the policy wording of an insurance document is when they are making a claim by which time if they’re not covered for a specific item it’s too late. Short of hiring a contract lawyer to explain it to you there are some major areas in which you can ensure that if you had to make a claim that your expectations are based on Knowledge and not Assumptions thus ensuring that they are met.
The most important issue would be to use an Adviser who specialises in the area of the insurance that you are looking for. These Advisers are the ones that are selling the products and the ones that will be assisting you in making the claims. So they have to make sure that the plan that they recommend will be robust enough to meet all of your expectations. They should have a panel of different insurance agencies and products that they can access and they must have knowledge of the differences between each one and be able to recommend the cover that most accurately reflects what you are looking for.
If you had to make a claim an Adviser is able to assist you in lodging your claim. Assisting you in completing the forms, following up on the progress of the application. They are almost as motivated as the client would be that the claim is paid out because it’s their recommendation that is being called in to question. Your Adviser is Accountable to you and when your back is against the wall having an Advisor who has made a good recommendation from a range of products and providers means that you have the best possible chance of your expectations being met come claim time.
