"Combined Insurance Company"? Pushy "hard sell" sales tactics?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Re: Combined Insurance

They are both utter rubbish. Go consult an independent broker.
 
Re: Combined Insurance

I know alot about this company. Just a few points to mention:

1. Firstly, their policies ARE tax deductable - but if you deduct it from your tax bill, you will pay tax on any money they pay you. Therefore, your accountant will tell you its not worth your while writing it off against tax.

2. Secondly, they are the only Insurance company in Ireland left with a licence to cold call your house/business/club. Due to new financial regulations, they now have to announce who they are at the door. If they don't do that - they are breeching regulations. Place a call to the regulator and the company with the reps name - this will sort them out.

3. Now, the financial regulator has stated that an insurance policy is only as good as your knowledge of the policy - this is the tactic used by these people to call on you every couple of months - to review your benefits(and sell you more). If you are a customer of theirs, and you do not wish to purchase any more insurance - call their office in Dublin and ask to put a calling instruction on your account. i.e. Do Not Call or Appointment Only. This way, nobody can knock on your door!!

4. As for payment of claims - they say you have to inform them of the accident within 30 days. The regulator has said that all claims can be handled upto 365 days from event. Don't put up with their bullsh!t.


5. According to the Central Statistics office their are 14 accident providers in Ireland offering Personal Accident Cover. In 2006, the 14 providers paid out €36,000,000.00 in claims. Of this, Combined Insurance paid out over €26,000,000.00. That works out at 72%. Thats not too bad...
 
Re: Combined Insurance


Hmmm. I'd take issue with a few of your points.

1/. Some of their policies may be tax deductable, subject to the normal terms and conditions. I checked their website, but surprise surpise they have no contract details on there. Their policies however are listed as accident and health care. Accident policies cannot qualify for tax relief.

2/. I can see no special cold calling authorisation for this Co. I've checked IFSRA's website.

3/. My personal view is that a rep. of Combined, or anyone else's tied agent
for that matter, calling regularly to simply sell additional product to unsuspecting and probably uninformed consumers is a bad idea. How can the advice being given be of any worth? What if the products are awful value?
 
Re: Combined Insurance


Just for the record - I don't like their sales tactics - very pushy. But at the end of the day, these guys jobs are to sell - and some of them do it quite well.

Furthermore - as long as ISFRA allow Insurance companies to cold call - this practice will continue. There is a box on their application forms that a customer can tick if they do not wish to be offered further cover. This is common on anything you sign upto today. This is often overlooked by the consumer - Buyer Beware.

As for value for money - they offer products that simply can't be beaten on price for coverage provided. They are like ronseal - they do exactly what they say they do. If it was anyother way, the regulator simply wouldn't let them sell their products in this country!!
 
Re: Combined Insurance


The pushy sales guys may do well, but what about the consumers?

Cold calling is not allowed afaik. I'll look up the code of practice later on to confirm. Assuming I'm right do these guys just openly flout the law?

Value for money. What do you base your claim on? Door to door Insurance sales, and premium collection is a very expensive way to transact business. All other things being the same, value for money should be inferior.
 
Re: Combined Insurance



As far as consumers go, the figures speak for themselves:
In 2006, the 14 providers paid out over €36,000,000 in the 26 counties. Combined paid €26,000,000 of this.

I think that you'll find that cold calling is allowed, although the regulator will probably phase this out in the next couple of years. Therefore they are not breaking any laws.

These guys are commission only based. 95% of premiums are collected by direct debit. The other 5% are collected through whats referred to as live renewal and the commission on this is non existant.

You won't find them advertising on the tv, papers, mailshot, etc - this coupled with the fact that their sales force are commission only, means that they minimise the cost and are therefore able to provide a very competitive product.

I have my own reasons to dislike this company. You seem to be very anti-Combined. Why is this? Are you a former customer? Employee? IFA?
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

I know this company well. They sell 2 types of policies: Accident and Sickness

You claim for accidents on your accident policies and sickness on your sickness poliices...SIMPLE!

You CANNOT claim tax as their policies are not termed as "Permanent Health Care" policies. Some people claim the premiums as a legitimate business expense.

If you're making a claim you have "30 days or any reasonable period". If you're late, just call the office and they'll get you to write in with the details of the claim. If you're being up front with them, there'll usually be no problems with your claim. If you give them reason to be suspicious...

If you don't want reps to call to your house, call the office and ask to be put on the Do Not Call list. If a rep calls 21 days after that, call the office and make an official complaint.

If the reps are calling to your door, don't try to engage them in conversation, they're trained to turn most arguments into a sales pitch so just close the door in their face. I know this may seem rude but REMEMBER they're not your friend, they just want to make commission off your payments.

They are allowed to cold call but that will be changing soon when new regulations are put in place.

They also ask your neighbours if they know anyone in the area that may be interested in buying insurance...which may be why they're calling to you.

If you've taken out policies with them, READ THE DOCUMENT and if you're unsure of anything CALL THE OFFICE. Possibly, a rep may have been a little "fuzzy" with the full details of the cover. This may be because they're under the impression you know your cover.

Normally, if they're calling to you to sell you cover again and again, you are taking out ADDITIONAL cover, your original policies remain in force. One of the signatures you sign when taking out policies is one that states you understand the level of cover you have and want more...BEWARE!

Check your bank for Direct Debits to CICE. If you have a number of them, call combined and ask for a list of all your policies.

If this list still leaves you confused, ask them to send out a Customer Care Rep to sit down with you, and go through all your policies in detail.

Otherwise, if you can, call into their office in merrion Road, Dublin and one of the customer care staff will help you.

If you want to cancel your policies put it IN WRITING to BOTH your BANK and COMBINED and ask for written confirmation of the cancellation. You can also ask for a refund of any premiums paid in the 30 days prior to cancellation. if you don't ask...you probably won't get.

If you don't receive the written confirmation from both your bank or combined, call to see if they got the letter. The postal service is not infallable and the letter may genuinely not have got to them.

If you feel you were pushed into taking out the cover, you can also write in and cancel your policies within 30 days and get a full refund.

If you haven't read your policies you really are asking for trouble. Claiming ignorance of your cover or saying that the rep told you a different story is embarrassing... YOU'RE AN ADULT, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR KNOWING YOUR COVER!

Having said all this, I have dealt with combined in the past and they will sort out most problems quickly once you have provided them with the details.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Re: Combined Insurance



Firslty - Just to Clarify - I have worked for this company as a rep and an Area Sales Manager. I no longer work for them and have no vested interest in the company.

I agree with your 1st point - but even going to a Financial adviser for Insurance is not what it seems - i.e. you do not sell policies from all companies including Cornmarket, Combined, Allied Dunbar, etc. - they have direct sales force. Financial advisers get paid commission too - and it varies from company to company - so naturally you will try and steer consumer to a product where your commission is higher!!

As for their payouts, let me clarify - this info can be found in a blue book from ISFRA - sorry, I cannot remember the name of it, but if you phone ISFRA they can point you in the right direction.

Finally, their policies - i.e. their accident policy has only 3 exclusions - they do not discriminate against occupation, extreme sports, etc. I thing you'll find that most accident providers will not insure you doing certain occupations/sports - this gives Combined an edge in my view.

P.s. - Can you clarify the point on cold-calling. According to ISFRA - its perfectly legal???
 
Re: Combined Insurance


Your experience seems to be UK based. Fair enough, but it's a different market, but importantly with different regulation.

A "Best advise" principle applies here. Some brokers act on a fee basis also, with any commission earned being offset. Some clients best interests are served by advising them "do nothing". You also have to justify your "reasons why" you recommend a particular policy over any other. Commission cannot, on it's own, be one of them. So therefore I'd refute that point.

I've checked IFSRA's webite. No sign of the info. I will check further though.

As regards the policies themselves, no details are available. It's impossible to comment therefore. There may or may not be merit in them.

My point on the direct salesmen still applies. If a client needed a pension for example, and had ample cover other than that, guess what they wouldn't get from a Combined Rep?
 
Re: Combined Insurance


Actually, my expierence is of both the UK and the Republic.

A Combined sales agent has to fill out a Demands and Needs Statement - like a simple Fact Find. This asks questions of the Customer like - do you have any similar cover, do you have cover that pays from 1st day, etc.

If it's Impossible to comment on their policies, why then have you previously stated on this forum to stay clear of this Company???

My point on Financial advisers is that they typically advise customers to stay clear of companies like Combined - purely because they don't know the product and the Financial Adviser has nothing to gain by it - i.e. they will not recieve any payment for advising a client to take out one of these policies.
 
Re: Combined Insurance

I see. Some of the references you've made on this thread are a little confused. This site deals with Ireland only incidentally.

All Combined Ins. policies quaify for tax relief - erm no they don't. IFA's, & Allied Dunbarr don't exist/operate here. Cornmarket are Brokers, not insurers. You referred to the CSO stats. covering personal accident claims. That has since become IFSRA's blue book (which doesn't exist afaik). I could go on but I've made my point I think, which is your posts are frequently factually inaccurate, and therefore potentially misleading.

A simple fact find can only provide simplistic answers, you've made a number of reasons for sale out of unique selling points. "They'll accept anyone" and "cover that pays from day 1". Are these reason enough? I think not. I've done a wee bit more digging and have found out that general Brokers can sell Combined Ins. products too. From one of those I found out that premiums are not guaranteed (reviewable annually) and that some policies stop paying after 12 months of a claim. No wonder they are so cheap.

I commented on cases I reviewed. Older cases granted but the point is a valid one. I can't get info. on a current stuff. I wonder why?

Lastly you made a quite damning statement "they offer products that simply can't be beaten on price for coverage provided". My question is how can you know that? IFSRA's authorisation for Tied Agents specifically prevents them from making comparisons with competing co's at the point of sale. As an ex. rep I suppose you'll just probably say "I knew this, but never mentioned it".

The reason for these replies is nothing personal, it's just I hate to see insurance improperly sold, which is exactly what I suspect a lot of these "high pressure" salesmen are doing daily.
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

Folks

When you want to reply, hit the Reply button, not the Quote button.

If you hit the quote button, the entire post is reproduced.

Brendan
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

My father took out a combined insurance policy years(c 10) ago with combined insurance.
The original premium was 207 pounds a year.
He is a farmer and would be on quite low income.
he is also now over 70 which cuts his benefit in half
It was a "sickness income policy","providing benefits for loss of time caused by sickness".
He was in hospital for 26 days. Was recovering for a further few weeks.
I have had to work on the farm and take time off from my own work to help out at home.
We recently got a cheque from combined for 100 euro.
This is a joke.
I didnt think something like this could be legal.
Deos anyone have any advise as to what to do.

also to easyriderait who says combined pay out 25,000000 a year should know that this means nothing unless you have further information on how much of a market share they have ie what their premium to payout rate is.

You can say my dad is stupid but first think of your parents and grandparents being approached by aggressive sales methods and i suspect very strongly outright lies.

any advise appreciated
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

Refer it to the Ombudsman rinkh.
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

RS2K said:
Refer it to the Ombudsman rinkh.
Click to expand...
Do you mean the [broken link removed]? If so they you'll have to exhaust CI's complaints process and get a final response letter before the FSO will deal with it.
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

I'd assumed that had already happened ClubMan.
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

Fair enough. Just that some people here seem to recommend going straight to the FSO without mentioning that they will only deal with complaints as a last resort.
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

Actually i havnt contacted the complaints dept.
My mom has contacted combined and they confirmed that he is only entitled to 100 euro.
I contacted them this morning asking for an up to date policy document and a breakdown of how they arrived at 100 euro.
Ill see where it geos from there.
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

Getting more info seems like a sensible idea. If there are grounds for complaint once you received these then make one (formally in writing). If, having exhausted the CI complaints process, you are still not happy then get a "final response" letter and take the matter to the FSO.
 
Re: Advice on "Combined Insurance Company"?

To be fair to Combined, the majority of the above grieviances seem to relate the manner of how the policies are sold ie door to door. There is little comment about the quality of the product for the price charged. I disagree with the view above that this is irrelevant. There are many products that are hard sell and there is huge element of sales with consumer products now. Most consumers are well informed and financial products are heavily regulated. Alot of Insurance products are execellent value but you have to make sure you understand what you are buying. If it is complex product get advice but remember you have to pay for advice as with any other professional expertise. I would not totally disregard a product just because someone is using a hard sell.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Menu
Log in
Register