FTAdviser.com

Advertising

Senior financial adviser Alan Ingham was diagnosed with chronic fatigue after a nose operation four years ago, which led to an infection that triggered post-viral fatigue.

According to Ingham, Norwich Union (NU) agreed to pay out against his PHI policy, after receiving a diagnosis of chronic fatigue from his GP, consultant and NU's own consultant.

However, in November 2006 Ingham said NU sent another consultant psychiatrist to assess him, who declared that he was suffering from hay fever.

Despite subsequent medical reports reinforcing the diagnosis of chronic fatigue, Ingham said NU stopped his payments.

He claims: "The Department of Work and Pensions were satisfied I was suffering from chronic fatigue and were paying me incapacity. This report that this other doctor produced was in part fiction and in other parts misleading."

Ingham has since brought his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which last month (October) ruled in his favour and ordered NU to reinstate his payments and pay those that were not paid over the past two years.

"I had eight doctors that diagnosed me with chronic fatigue and one which was theirs that didn't, he said.

"My condition isn’t something you can diagnose by a bloodtest, so it makes us easy targets."

Ingham added: "[Norwich Union] haven’t offered any apology or compensation payment for the stress."

A Norwich Union spokeswoman said: "Norwich Union Healthcare takes its Treating Customers Fairly responsibilities extremely seriously and very few cases get referred to the FOS and where this route is taken the FOS generally uphold our decisions.

"In the minority of cases where the FOS finds against Norwich Union Healthcare we re-instate the policy and pay any interest owed on the benefit along with compensation if required by the FOS.

"When the FOS makes a recommendation we take it very seriously and we make sure that appropriate action is taken to minimise the risk of a similar situation occurring in the future."