Southern Cross misbehaving

Willowgrove Consulting Limited

This week we discovered Southern Cross had been acting less honorably than we would expect from our largest medical insurer.

Removing a benefit that enables policyholders to access new private hospital treatments when they become available. This isn't experimental treatment; this is MedSafe Approved and Pharmac Funded. Making it more difficult for about 1 in 5 people that have cover with them.

It might be okay for them to make the changes; their policy wordings say they can. More, the problem is how they did it without effective notice and left policyholders and the financial services industry to figure it out.

On the basis that neither clients calling nor product research houses have picked it up in nearly three years, this is more about how it was done than it is about people picking it up and understanding it.