- Overall
4.7Overall
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Value for Money
6Value for Money
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Customer Experience
4Customer Experience
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Claims Experience
4Claims Experience
Horrendous customer service and communication
My boyfriend and I travelled to the Philippines last month and were unfortunate enough to fall ill from tummy bugs. My boyfriend got the symptoms first and had to be admitted to the hospital then it was my turn a few days later. The communication and claiming process were frankly horrible and frustrating, especially when we were dealing with recovering from our illness at the same time.
Here is what happened: While he was still in the Emergency Department, we already got the ball rolling with getting the insurance company involved. We were assigned an agent in the Philippines, who in all fairness, did all he could to help from afar during the process as he didn't live in the same city we were in. Unfortunately, since the insurance company wasn't affiliated with the hospital and the holidays interfered with the efficiency of money transfers, we had to pay the hospital out of our own pockets. All throughout, we communicated with the local agent and provided all documentation required. The moment we paid and my boyfriend got discharged, we informed both the local agent and 1cover. The local agent even cc'd me in his email informing 1cover about everything that has transpired and attached all the paperwork. We gave it a few days, during which i had to be admitted to the hospital too for almost the exact same symptoms, before we followed up on my boyfriend's claim as well as mine. This is where all the problems started:
1. I didnt get any response to my request for assistance during my admission until my boyfriend's dad called 1cover and they found out they had sent an email to me to the wrong email adress. This was corrected through the phone. Im pretty sure they should have had the correct one on file ages ago, when I actually first bought the insurance plan.
2. I finally got an email back giving me a link where i should process my claim online. The link sent me to Southern Cross, not 1 cover. I emailed again, verifying the link, and was given an email address this time where i should send my claim and all necessary docs. I sent an email to said email address and got a delivery failure notice. Agent apologised and reassured me claiming wasnt usually this difficult. BUT yes, in our case, it was turning out to be a nightmare. I didn't trust any of it by this time, so i went on their official website and completed the claims process there instead of having to deal with different agents replying to my emails every time. It was a communication breakdown from start to finish!
3. My boyfriend followed up on his claims since he hadn't heard anything more since he got discharged. The agent who replied appeared to know nothing about the case and was asking if he was still in the hospital and so on. What happened to all those emails we/local agent sent to update 1cover regarding this? What happened to all those attached documents? We were so fed up with this beating around the bush so my boyfriend did the same thing I did. He went to the official website and uploaded everything all over again.
Thankfully, two weeks from when we claimed online, we finally got our refund. Having paid for the insurance plan, having to pay extra to cover preexisting conditions, and committing to a $200 excess on each of our plans, we expected a much better customer experience than what we went through. No one wants to be sick and have to be admitted in the hospital, but alas, that's what happened to us. The least we wanted was to be able to rest easy knowing we'd get our money's worth with 1cover, but ultimately discovered we had to jump through a million hoops before we got the refund that we were entitled to. I hope this review will help in bringing about huge improvements in 1cover's customer service and claims process and to enlighten future clients about what's in store for them.
1 comments on this review
I regret that we provided you with bad service and a poor customer experience, it is the exact opposite of what we pride ourselves on.
I sincerely apologise for the delay in response when you initially contacted our medical assistance team and this is something we will review, we certainly do not wish to add any additional stress to what is already a very distressing time overseas.
Keeping an open dialogue with our customers is how we improve our service, so thank you for taking the time to leave us a review.
Sophie@1Cover
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