BBC Programme Watchdog recently screened three women who had claimed that their critical illness claims had been dealt with unfairly by their insurers, Abbey National. Poor publicity has been received by Abbey over these issues and some they have made financial recompense and with others the matter has been referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service and Abbey have won.
Our view
We cannot comment on the cases or indeed the TV programme. What we can say though is that TV can sometimes sensationalise events and 'muddy' the real issues to gain viewer attention. We are definitely not fans of Abbey! But, the only fair way is for an independent arbitrator such as the Ombudsman to oversee and rule on any case and not a TV jury.