Backdated payments from Liberty

I recently submitted a claim on behalf of my wife who has contracted Parkinsons. The claim was initially submitted late as we were not aware that she had cover for this condition but when we finally submitted it, we were asked by Liberty for various information from the doctors that are treating her and had treated her in the past.

The request for this information was sent to us and the doctors in question over a long period of time at different intervals which took almost two months to obtain.

As Liberty knew what information they required, why wasn't this submitted in one go instead of dragging the procedure over a total of almost 3 months since we submitted the claim?

Nevertheless, we finally managed to obtain all the information and Liberty finally paid us. The final payment was only 25% of the total claim as my wife's Parkinson is at the initial stages. While this is acceptable and we shall be able to claim further as the condition worsens, what is not acceptable is that Liberty paid the 25% calculated at the date of diagnosis, not the date of pay out which was several months later.

This made the difference of almost R4000 which we were short payed.

This is regardless of the fact that Liberty caused much of this delay and regardless of the fact that our premiums have been payed on time. As Liberty has been able to make use of OUR money until the date of pay out, we find it totally ********* and unacceptable that they should backdate the payment in this manner. It clearly gives Liberty motivation to delay payments for as long as possible.

Italo Fioravanti