“Over 3 months since my wife tried ti make a claim for treatment. Constant back and forth asking for more information from the GP. Even the GP has had enough and has verbally told us there is no more info to give. It’s a very recognisable condition that is not pre-existing (the GP has also put this in writing to Vitality). Vitality seem to be deliberately delaying in the hope that we go away. Unfortunately my wife has had to go private at her own expense due to the amount of time that has passed and the pain she is in. Easily the worst service we have experienced.”
“I have just had a bad experience with Vitality UK while using their Care Hub app and talking to a customer service representative about a claim, both were very unhelpful and unreliable. I won't be paying to use Vitality UK ever again as it's a waste of time and money.”
“They rely on the app to make appointments and it is extremely temperamental. Pay the bit extra and use a different private healthcare provider, don't go through the same punishment as me. I've literally had their GP try to video call me twice and after pressing accept, the call just failed. COWBOYS!”
“They sent me to a consultant or gave me options of whom to see, then the consultant advised a treatment, and they refused, typical insurance company, why send me to a consultant and then refuse the treatment
Insurance is like a religion, you pay, but you don't know if its going to pay out, a terrible company”
“So far I have tried to use them twice and have been very disappointed. They behave like an insurance company not a health insurance provider. There are barriers to accessing healthcare and they seem to try to avoid allowing your treatments as much as possible. Every interaction has been long winded and difficult. Year with either BUPA AXA AVIVA always feeling safe and supported but now I am shocked by this as a service and feel I may as well not have this policy at all.”
“Poor customer service. The agents are friendly and try and help. but then the systems are updated, but this is not reflected in the online portal, which is overly complicated. So you have to call again. Long story short, after 4 weeks of trying to get support, I found out I was wrongly supported, and in fact can not be helped, so not only is my issue exacerbated my the messing around, but I'm in a worse mental and financial position. very disappointed. If you want free coffees and a apple watch great, go for it, if you want health cover I would recommend going somewhere else.”
“I'm going to pay more & Go elsewhere!
Have been with most of the major healthcare providers. I usually swap providers annually via my broker to obtain the best price.
This is the biggest insurance mistake I've ever made. So much so I will pay extra to leave mid term and I will pay extra to insure with another provider.
One that doesn't have a call centre abroad, where you struggle to get your point across, one that doesn't make it exceedingly difficult to make a claim, one that doesn't have shockingly bad reviews, one that doesn't have a high amount of reviews that mention claim denials or ombudsman referrals (see website reviews.i.o).
I do not feel like my and my partners health is in good hands for the 1st time ever in years of being a private healthcare customer. I think that says it all.”
“Whatever you do, don't book with them... Everything seems very nice at the beginning but they will do as much as they can to take your money and find excuses not to pay for your treatments.
Check other websites for reviews... You will see most of the people give them 1 star”
“Renewal automated and premium tripled. Sadly missed the letters and now being told
that despite my company policy increasing almost three fold that I’m stuck in contract till next November!
£12k policy id rather pay the cash to my staff than an insurer who has made such radical price increases in year two with them! Disgusting”
“Vitality Health moving the goalposts yet again. This has happened every single time I have engaged with Vitality to progress a claim, from first time conditions, to pre-existing conditions which are covered by the plan specifically, their customer support staff do absolutely everything to not authorise a claim. After years of being with AXA & Aviva, Vitality is by far the bottom of the barrel.
Having previously suffered with a mental health condition some years ago, the wording of the policy was changed to exclude it on renewal, however the policy was amended after to include the condition and talking therapy to ensure if it was ever required it could be used again. Surprise surprise, when trying to claim, the consultant who was previously registered, had been removed by Vitality. They confirmed if I got the consultant reinstated I could progress seeing them. After months of jumping through hoops, they are now re-registered. Surprise surprise, Vitality’s call handler can neither find the previous notes nor the amendment confirming cover even though it’s on the policy documents. They are saying claims teams don’t have accessed to what is and isn’t covered, but are the people who decline cover due to policy? I think they make up this stuff as they go along with a bonus if they can decline cover.
After providing documentation, and writing in for a Subject Access Request, suddenly they now have access to prior conversations and will cover the condition, but, not with that consultant and only via a panel of clearly cheaper consultants. So the past 4 months of getting that consultant re-registered has been totally pointless and I have been sent on a wild goose chase.
Now that cover has been re-included, they are now angling down the ‘chronic’ route to try and deny cover past the initial review. This is absolutely deplorable and desperate to deny any claim possible.
Vitality - don’t worry about responding to this saying you’re disappointed you haven’t met expectations and you’d like to discuss it further, that’s just a visual attempt to appear to other customers like you care. All you as a company care about is making money by declining cover which people are paying for.
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“We have been paying over £75 a month for income protection and serious illness cover for 3 years.
During this time my husband was diagnosed with an incurable disease in his spine which firstly made him have to leave work, and will eventually land him in a wheelchair.
We tried to claim on our policy for firstly serious illness cover, but Vitality refused to pay out on the claim as they apparently do not recognise the disease. Despite providing all scans and documents from doctors and specialists specifying that this is life changing and incurable. Vitality do not see being wheelchair bound in your 40s as a serious problem. And when it came to having to leave work, the incredibly ignorant woman on the phone just said 'well you can do something else!'.
Secondly, while he was out of work after going through the process of asking for reasonable adjustments at work first, we tried to claim for income protection.
Income protection is sold by Vitality as a set monthly income which you receive if you are out of work for more than 3 months with a medical condition.
Again, this claim was rejected.
Each time we have submitted a claim the communication has been poor, it took three phone calls of chasing to receive the forms the second time and then it took them 3 months to even consider the claim, during this time they are collecting their extreme £75+ fee each month.
It's a con, they are rude, inconsiderate and it appears that unless you have cancer they are not interested in helping and will find a loop hole to get out of paying up.”
“Just beyond a joke, trying to make a claim and you just go round and round in circles. Blatant lies on the website. The whole company is full of holes. I have put a complaint in the FCA. Avoid!!”
“They don't cover sleep apnea.
They lead you to believe that the health insurance is comprehensive. Then, as soon as you develop an issue, they worm out of it with small print. You'd think sleep apnea would be covered (as it is with other health insurance providers).”
“If you claim for anything your premium sky rockets.
I also have been pestered with calls with renewal and everytime i say I am moving countries and no longer require insurance and ask if I need to do anything the customer service reps just rudely hung up. But I am still getting calls!!! Really awful email communications with many email written in and none back. The perks are good but I wasted my money on vitality, and should have went for Boopa”
“What's the point in having health insurance that has perks linked to daily activities when the provider can't even get their app to track accrued points through supposed partner applications.
Then they expect you, as a paying customer, to manually update all your activities because they can't get their act together and maintain a functional app.
Their contact us section of the app doesn't work either. Absolute con.”
“My Company decided to give it a go and enroll this year with Vitality, for the past 15 years we used mainly Axa ppp and other providers such Bupa. These big companies are expensive however they take the stress away in terms of approving claims or consultations. Never had problems in the past. Unfortunately for me Vitality so far only offered a poor service. As other reviewers mentioned the amount informations requested plus involving GP on obtain records only elongate the process; reason why people use Private health insurance is to actually avoid these long wait to see a GP and been referred as soon as possible.Just so you know if you ask your Gp to fill up the records forms it will take up to 4 weeks and also you have to pay a fee to your surgery. So you might be quicker booking an appointment with your Gp than fill these forms !!! The frustrating part is the fact we took the full package from vitality and covering also existing condition however at the time of the switch you must forecast if you might have present conditions that might develop into something that requires additional consultations, basically they will do everything in their power to avoid claims!! So to everyone thinking to switch to Vitality ]bear in mind that you might encounter issue when making a claim. By the way my referral was approved by Vitality online GP and still wants more informations by my Gp, Definitely no worth the stress on taking a cheaper Company which only interest is on saving money.”
