NFU grrrr....Major RANT, sorry

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MissMincePie&Brandy

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I have been able to get through today to NFU (after last week, when I spent a day calling and either being given multiple alternative numbers to call, and/or them then not answering.)

My Claim form was sent at the beginning of September. It appears my claim has been split into 2 halves. I paid 2 excesses, which is all OK, but bizarrely one half has been sent to Equine First, and the other half is being dealt with by NFU. WTF????

Today I was given the phone number of Equine First as NFU don't have any idea at what stage my Claim is at with them, so I rang E.F.
Apparently E.F. have only recently received my details from NFU (even though I sent them 3 and a half months ago), and E.F. still need all the invoices from the vet, and asked me to get my vet to re-send them all again. - I have already supplied all of these, plus 2 corrective farriery invoices which I won’t easily be able to get more copies of. Also, how is my vet supposed to know what half is being dealt with by which company. Equine First don't seem to be clear on it :( So I rang NFU again, and now everybody seems to be confused :o

My new horse has recently arrived, so today I've rang all the main insurers for quotes, including NFU. The number to call for a quote apparently is nothing to do with claims. The man on the NFU sales line who I spoke to was very quick tempered and rude to me: I merely wanted an approximate quote for my new horse, so that I can compare it to the likes of KBIS, Petplan and SEIB etc who have all happily just quoted. I went through the questions, and he said he needed a copy of the 5st vets report, and I said that I have it, my horse passed and I only want a quote. The man was downright rude and said unless I send the vet report to him he wouldn't give me a quote! So I then explained how I'd been with NFU for 7 years, never made a claim until 3 and a half months ago, and it's still ongoing and half of it has been sent to Equine First. To my dismay, this NFU agent questioned my integrity and he stated that NFU always pays up immediately and he'd never heard of Equine First. A bit of an argument broke out, and I demanded to know if I cancel my original horse policy with them now, would my claims still be honoured, and before he ended the call his last words were 'I doubt it'

I have just rang NFU customer services and made an official complaint. I'm so upset and disgusted. I hope all the recent bad publicity they have got is noticed and people take note that they are a confused and disjointed company - and at the moment, in my opinion are also a dishonourable company.
 
Equine First ALWAYS say they have lost your receipts - tell them to go back and find them. They did the same to me. They also emailed me towards the end of my claim and said they actually had no idea how much they owed me as they have "misplaced my file" so could I please let them know how much was outstanding.

Just tell them they need to go back and look again for the receipts.

You cannot afford to be nice to Equine First, they are a total disaster. Gloves off whenever dealing with them!
 
If your contract is with NFU, why is equine first involved? Being an NFU customer I would not expect another company entering the picture, that is confusing.

By the way, I have had good experiences with NFU (claimed about a year ago when my mare was severely injured due to being kicked in the field).

If the person was rude, make a proper complaint - there is no need to tolerate it, and it is important that people are treated kindly and politely when distressed due to their pet being sick or injured.
 
Thanks for the advice. Will ring them up ...again.

It's my first experience of claiming and it's horrible. I've worked out that over the years of paying insurance premiums, if instead I had just transfered the same amount into a bank account, I'd have more than enough to cover my recent claims and still have plenty left over.
I thought taking out an insurance policy was suppose to mean peace of mind???? :o

KBIS seems pretty good and the premium price is comparable to what i pay NFU for my old horse (No idea what NFU would quote for my new horse, and quite frankly I don't care either) . Petplan was the most expensive.
 
If your contract is with NFU, why is equine first involved? Being an NFU customer I would not expect another company entering the picture, that is confusing.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

Go to the insurance ombudsman.
 
CJ, Yes my contract is with NFU.
Apparantly they have a huge backlog and have got other insurers working for them to help clear the backlog. I was not informed or aware of this.
It is worse for me because no one seems exactly sure which company is paying for what.

My ex-racehorse went in for a poor performance investigation, and ended up having scans and xrays, which revealed multiple problems all unrelated, and his ridden life is now over. One drug can help with several of the problems, etc so it is really confusing having 2 companies dealing with it.

Is it illegal then what NFU have done? Sending my details and passing half my claim to Equine First. Please advise.
 
EF aren't really an insurance company, they are a chartered loss adjusters. They took on all of the work from Equestrian Direct when the company who bought ED's client list didn't want to deal with the ongoing claims.

There is no point in calling EF, you have to do everything in writing with them and it has to go Recorded Delivery so that you have a signature to prove they received it. If you phone them they will just fob you off. Write them a polite letter in the first instance stating why you are upset, what you want them to do to remedy this and when you want them to act by. You can email them - when I spoke to the FSA and FO, both told me that email is a perfectly acceptable method of communication/complaining.

If EF don't respond or don't do what you want, speak to the Financial Services Authority who will advise you on your next steps. EF and NFU have to abide by a set of rules governing insurers - EF were in direct breach of about 5 of them in my case and I had to get the Financial Ombudsman involved. When I called the FO, they said that EF weren't even an approved representative of either ED or the new company (EIS?)! The FSA will give you a template for a letter to right to EF, which goes directly to them. If this doesn't work, the FO will have to deal with NFU in the first instance, who are then (I believe) expected to answer for EF.

I know this probably all looks very extreme but please believe me.. I spent 18 months dealing with EF so I have it down to a fine art now! They eventually paid up last year but this year (when they should have just been settling the last few receipts from the same claim), it took 9 months to get them to pay me.
 
maybe contacting the BBC Watchdog programme would help. What a mess. I'm sorry for your problems, its difficult enough without the insurers who charge an awful lot IMO giving people the run around.
 
I wonder whether NFU are aware that EF seems to have a much worse reputation than them... can you talk to NFU first and say you are not happy for EF to treat your claim - say you picked NFU due to THEIR reputation for customer service you wish all correspondence to go through NFU?
 
This is the problem in ANY sort of insurance; the company you deal with (such as NFU) on an initial basis and who sells you the policy, won't in all probability be the people you deal with if you have to claim; it will be allocated to a loss adjustor.

This happened to us in the cold snap in January when a tenant allowed the pipes in the house we'd rented to him, to freeze up. Whilst the insurance company we'd dealt with did initially deal with the claim forms we submitted, it was all then farmed out to a loss adjustor company (who then were amalgamated into ANOTHER company!) so that made it so blimmin confusing, and we had to pay out a lot of money and wait ages for it to come back, which is what always happens unfortunately - fine if you've got money you can aford to pay out but not if you can't!

I think this is a classic case for the ombudsman; but my feeling is that these ombudsman are not quite as impartial as they'd have us all believe; we had a problem with the EA a few years back and our local MP was supporting our case but the ombudsman ruled in favour of the other side (who was a well known local Freemason) - say no more.
 
_CJ_ said:
I wonder whether NFU are aware that EF seems to have a much worse reputation than them... can you talk to NFU first and say you are not happy for EF to treat your claim - say you picked NFU due to THEIR reputation for customer service you wish all correspondence to go through NFU?
Click to expand...

Yes I will ring them and try to get some sense out of it all tomorrow when I have a fresh head. I've been on the phone to all sorts of people relating to either NFU or EF for half of the day now and am feeling a bit nautious. I hate this feeling of utter confusion and helplessness.

I'm wondering if I ought to pay the big vets bill myself, because they have sent me a couple of payment demands now, and I worry that if I need an emergency call they might not come out?
(I have known a vet to refuse to come out to a client who had outstanding bills. It was a livery at our yard, who's no longer there - he didnt pay his livery bill either!)

Yet if I do pay the vet directly, this might even confuse the whole mess even more???
 
Misinterpreted said:
Yes I will ring them and try to get some sense out of it all tomorrow when I have a fresh head. I've been on the phone to all sorts of people relating to either NFU or EF for half of the day now and am feeling a bit nautious. I hate this feeling of utter confusion and helplessness.

I'm wondering if I ought to pay the big vets bill myself, because they have sent me a couple of payment demands now, and I worry that if I need an emergency call they might not come out?
(I have known a vet to refuse to come out to a client who had outstanding bills. It was a livery at our yard, who's no longer there - he didnt pay his livery bill either!)

Yet if I do pay the vet directly, this might even confuse the whole mess even more???
Click to expand...

I paid my vet myself after 3 months, even though they kept telling me not to. Vet said he wished more people would do the same as they often end up waiting more than 6 months for claims to be settled and bills paid!

It shouldn't confuse the matter - does your policy say that NFU should settle directly with the vet or that you should? Most policies IME actually say you should do it then claim back from your insurer. Has your claim been approved at all? I would wait for that first. Write to EF, tell them you will be taking advice from the FSA in the first instance if they don't look at your claim within 14 days. Send the letter Recorded Delivery or by email with a read receipt on it. You need to give EF reasonable time to look at your file but you also need to put it all in writing.

The best people to advise you are the Financial Services Authority in the first instance. If their advice doesn't sort things out then you go to the FO. I found the FSA to be incredibly helpful so start with them. You can't go straight to the Ombudsman, you must follow the FSA's procedures.
 
NFU have apparently just moved offices, with major upheaval, hence the changed phone numbers etc, also with the problems of relocation & then the bad weather, that is why things are not running as smoothly or fast as usual. I gather that they have "farmed out" some of the work prcessing claims, so I.suspect that is the reason the other company is involved! Like you I have been with NFU several years (& several claims unfortunately), & they were slower with the last one. Just make sure you keep copies of all the paperwork you send, so that you can send further copies as required.
 
Chestnut Cob:
The original forms were filled in to request that the payments were sent directly to the vet. I filled in half of the claim form, gave it to my vet, who filled the other half, and the vets sent the claim form, together with their invoices to NFU. Initially I thought that would be the best way.

I believe the claim has been approved, because I have not heard anything to the contrary. NFU tell me the delay is due to their backlog, and EF tell me they don't have (meaning have lost) my vets invoices. I will try to get some more clarification when I call tomorrow!
 
I have just had a letter from first equine about my recent claim and replied as desired. I will be marching down to my local office if I have any issues as they normally tidy everything up for me.
 
I had the same thing with First Equine. A couple of weeks later they'd received my horses documents. My horse was due to have surgery which cost around 3k so I said to them unless I get an answer quick this horse isnt having the surgery as I couldnt afford to pay for it. I had to push and rang up most weeks to find out what was happening. They paid out in the end.
 
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