Ombudsman rejects insurer's technicality defence
Aviva has been forced to pay £170,000 in a workplace personal injury claim by the Financial Ombudsmen Service in one of the biggest payout’s in FOS’s history.
In April 2007, Joe Greensmith suffered facial injuries when a pipe burst at work, leaving him with minor brain damage and memory loss.
In the two previous years, a £2.30 personal injury insurance premium had been deducted from Greensmith’s weekly pay packet and paid to Aviva.
When Greensmith tried claim on his premium, Aviva rejected it because he had not completed his timesheet for the week he was injured.
After three years of arbitration, the Ombudsman said: “On any fair and reasonable view, Aviva should not be seeking to raise technical points to resist this claim. Even on technical grounds, I am not satisfied Aviva has any reasonable basis for refusing this claim.”
An Aviva spokesperson said: "We are sorry that we did not handle Mr Greensmith's claim the way we should have done. We have learned lessons from this and will be applying them going forward. We respect the Ombudsman's decision and have now paid Mr Greensmith's claim in full."
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