VHI offer for ex-Intel members.

newmug

Hi folks. I have a strange one for yiz.

I worked in Intel for 8 years. They paid for my VHI on the "company plan" up to a certain amount, and I put the last few quid towards it. I usually paid a few extra bob to upgrade my cover to Level 2.

I was made redundant in April. My VHI cover will run out on 8th July. I wasnt going to bother with health insurance at all until I secure myself another job. However, last week a girl from VHI rang me to tell me about an "offer", specifically for ex-Intel people.

From what I could gather, she said that the "offer" is that I can get the most basic level of VHI cover for the basic price, and if I ever want a higher level of cover, I can purchase it for its going price. I asked her how thats an offer, sure isn't that the normal way of doing things? She insisted that I was getting some kind of once-in-a-lifetime oppertunity, and she wanted to sign me up straight away.

I explained that I didnt get how thats an "offer"? How am I saving? Where's the relevance to being ex-Intel? Couldn't any Joe Bloggs purchase the basic cover for the basic price, and then upgrade to higher cover for the higher cover price? She didnt have any answers for me, but she was extremely pushy about signing me up. I said not to sign me up for anything, just to send me the paperwork explaining the deal, and I'd get back to her.

Two days later I recieved a bill for E398. I rang VHI, explained what I've written above, but no luck. Apparently now I "owe" them E398.

Today I got another bill. This one has two different prices on it. One for the E398, and on the next page I apparently owe them E596.


So basically, did I miss something with this "offer" craic? Does anyone else out there have any experience with this ex-Intel offer? If so, does it have any connection to the mystery billing?

Cabaal

err you have a cooling off period for telephone and internet sales of 7 days and afaik this would apply to this situation.

You need to write them a formal complaint advising you requested not to be signed up and also that you called two days after the call etc

dudara

Moved to Banking & Insurance & Pensions

dudara

NuMarvel

I think the special offer the first agent was calling about was so that you wouldn't have to restart waiting periods. Normally when you take out health insurance you have to wait varying lengths of time before certain types of cover kick in. If there's a break of more than 13 weeks in your cover, then you're treated as a new member and waiting periods apply.

I'm not sure what specific plan the agent was going to put you on though. According to the Health Insurance Authority's website, the cheapest VHI plan is €495. I have read of people joining VHI's Plan P to protect the time they've been with VHI, but that only costs something like sixty to eighty euro. (Plan P isn't private health cover, it just covers public hospitals bills.)

With regard to the bills, I think you can pretty much ignore them. Firstly you never agreed to it, secondly as Cabaal points out you have a cooling off period if you did agree to it, and thirdly the worst that will happen is that VHI will send you a few more letters and then cancel the cover. If won't affect your credit rating, and based on current legislation, it can't affect any application for future health insurance coverage. Assuming you don't try to make any fraudulent claims of course

From reading other posts, this seems to be a standard VHI tactic/policy/approach of automatically continuing a person's cover on after they leave a company scheme. Unfortunately, the first the person hears of it is when they get the bill!

broker2008

• 14 day cooling off period.
• I would think the once in a lifetime opportunity offered by VHI relates to Plan P - if you join you could be tied to VHI for upto 10 years. This would depend on if you had a pre existing condition and your age
• If you do give up cover or decide not to go with VHI, you can reinstate your cover at the same level with any of the 3 insurers before 6th September. 13 week rule.
• VHI were making the calls because a lot of your colleagues left to join Quinn and Aviva

the groutch

they won't be able to chase this up, because they don't have recordings of a phone call with you agreeing to sign up