Conversely, why do you think such a small location was chosen? It is a subtle and deceitful game that is being played. Shoestring

Yes, of course CVSA is used in conjunction with other technology and techniques. The same might very well be said for the US torturers at Gitmo who use CVSA as part of their overall interrogation armoury. The important point to make here is that no one can be subjected to a lie detector test (polygraph) without their consent. Voice Stress Analysis claims to do the same thing and yet the Insurance industry use it without gaining specific consent from (or even informing) their customer. This arguably contravenes people's human rights. This is, of course, an assumption on your part and thus demonstrates the lack of accuracy that you appear to adhere to. In the case of the other thread I posted in, the claim in question, is not mine but someone who I am helping. The reason I am on the forum amounts to the same rationale as yours -- although somewhat broader in scope, because I post on other subjects besides insurance. Bad practises, of which there are a huge amount, need to be pointed out and, indeed, stamped out -- but that won't happpen in reality (there is no effective regulation except on those occasions when their is a large public outcry and the need for a PR campaign arises where heads must fall as a result [usually junior heads]). The "truth" is not quite so straightforward and prosaic as you believe it to be. In fact, it has many deeper levels than you are aware of. Let's say that such "understandings" that occur behind closed doors, are beyond your "pay grade". Shoestring

What your lecturer said entirely validates the point I was making. The insurance industry tries on all sorts of tricks all the time in order to minimise payout to buttress their performance and balance sheet. The customer is the one left out of pocket needing to take action to either appea to them, or the regulator, to show decent sense, to lump it, or engage a legal representative to take up proceedings on their behalf. The latter costs money as well as time, whereas the other actions take time and effort -- commodities that are stretched and in ever shorter supply these days.

Yes, I see. Irony is lost on you. I would not be in the least be surprised. Individuals, like industries, are inherently crooked when it comes to money. The difference is the uneven playing field environment between the individual and industry. Most individuals are just not clever enough to understand that they are thoroughly beaten even before they pay the first premium. The industry thrives on the inherent dishonesty of those seeking insurance. I doubt that you could see it, but this alone makes the industry itself ethically and factually dishonest. Both inside and outside the industry, no.

That you may find such language simple merely reflects the fact that you work in that industry and are familiar with the way it operates. In regard to the phone call you mention, why should it fall to the customer to clarify exceptions...especially as so many ordinary mortals don't understand the intent of the wording used. Surely, the responsibility should rest on the shoulders of the insurance industry (if misselling is to be avoided) to amplify, in simple understandable terms, the innumerable situations under which a claim will be declined at the time they accept the premium -- rather than the industry wide practise of knowingly accepting premiums in the clear actuarially tested knowledge that a given (and not always small) percentage of accepted policies will not be paid out when a claim is initiated -- the latter based on highly "swervy" and technical grounds? Regarding the phone call of which you speak, I believe I am right in stating that in claims situations that customer's call is vectored through a computer using Computer Voice Stress Analysis (CVSA) software, and that the claims agent listening to the call is looking at the analysis of each answer to each question he/she asks, in order to assess whether the customer is telling porkies - and then using this dodgy means of assessment to decline to pay out on a claim? CVSA is far less reliable than the polygraph that it attempts to replicate using the minute and inaudible signals allegedly given out by the human voice when presented with stressful situations. Independent tests show that it has no better chance of being accurate than predicting the toss of a coin. I would also point out that our kind American cousins in the Pentagon use CVSA as an interrogation tool at their torture base in Guatanamo Bay. Which goes some way to showing the mindset that of the insurance industry to use the same apllication on their customers as a means of significantly reducing payouts. As a retired professional writer (and former international banker) I think I will continue to trust my own experience of what constitutes clear and easy to understand language. But thank you all the same. Yes, I'm sure you do want to leave it here. Very quickly. I find it intersting that what you typify as an argument, I simply regard as a debate. Which is, after all, one of the purposes of internet forums. Moreover, there are -- as I keep telling you -- hundreds upons hundreds of threads already in existence on the banking forum about the finance industry. No need to start a new one when this one is going so well, eh.

Business and the lust for profit is as cynical as it ever gets, so yes, of course I am cynical. I understand business. I’ve seen inside the shadows and it ain’t pretty. Do I sense a "collective" of Insurance staff here? I think so. I disagree with lemon Twist (and you) here regarding the claims situation. Quite strongly, in fact. Few people who take out insurance policies are lawyers or are able to understand the designedly convoluted legal jargon and escape clauses that pepper every insurance document. Nor do insurance brokers, or insurance companies, make an effort to clearly explain or underscore the many exceptions under which a claim will either be disputed or not paid out. On the other hand the industry rapidly pockets every premium payment it can lay its hands on. Fair play dictates that if you are prepared to accept payment for a service then you must, in goodwill, render that service. Not seek to escape youre commitments by means of layers of incomprehensible lawyer-ese gobbledygook. I also have to say that i agree again with LemonTwists point on direct debits. If a company takes an amount out of your account via direct debit without your knowledge or consent, then you simply contact your bank for an indemnity claim and the money is immediately returned. the company is then notified of this and will contact you to arrange for the payment to be taken from a time that you agree. As I thought at the top of this post, you are also an insurance industry bod, which makes your view biased. Hardly surprising I might add. Ever hear of Northern Rock? You know, that millstone of £60 billion hanging around every taxpayers neck for the next couple of decades? The FSA is a joke. Since you are sharing historical anecdotes, allow me to share one of mine. Some years ago, prior to the FSA, I spoke to the Bank of England and asked them about the weakness of their regulatory arm as it pertained to a certain old and stately "crashed" UK bank. I was told that the Old Lady's position was that it favoured deregulation, because a corner-stone of the City's strength was the 400 plus banks that operate there. These banks had made it abundantly clear to the government of the day, and the banking regulator, that unless it agreed to deregulation, these foreign banks would move lock, stock and all-smoking-barrels to another European centre that was more amenable to allowing them to operate in an environment free from control (meaning they could fleece their customers as much as possible and engage in even more drug money laundering than usual). Knowing how banks use such threats (been there, done that) I am fairly certain in my own mind that there were idle in the extreme. But then the government of the day actually favoured extreme greed and did so in the name of the political economist Adam Smith (boy, he must have shriveled in his grave to hear them use associate his name to their policy of money-lust) I hope you like that anecdote.

Lemon Twist wrote: Quote: Cazzaswfc works for NU. There are many insurance workers on this forum who spend their free time giving advice to people needing help. There is never a need to insult anyone, even if you disagree with them. Most of what you have written in your comment simply isn't true. In no way do direct debits allow companies to take control over your bank account, and a company can't just take out whatever they want without advising the customer. Unquote Nonsense. You are elevating to an insult comments which simply recognised that Cazzaswfc was probably in the insurance industry and thus posting with professional bias. Regarding the other issues… Firstly, I invite you to read in detail the banking forum where the topic of direct debits has been aired fairly extensively. As well as the subject of the DD guarantee scheming. Secondly, I speak from personal and extensive knowledge as a former international banker of executive rank. Thirdly, I have spent many years investigating and writing about a wide range of unlawful and illegal corporate and government malfeasance and abuse. In other words I speak of what I know. Not of what you think I know. Variable DD’s take over effective control of the customer’s bank accounts for the very obvious reason that they bestow upon the beneficiary the power to name the amount and date upon which the beneficiary wishes to activate the DD. Not least eithert, is the fact that, as very often happens, the DD is activated at a time that forces the customer into an overdraw situation that allows the bank to charge a horrendous and unlawful sum in punitive charges. It is also very often the case that an additional non-payment or admin. charge is then made by the beneficiary too. A case of adding insult to injury. This “cycle” can and is often repeated the following day and several times thereafter – all before the customer receives a letter from his/her bank notifying him/her or the first bounce. Moreover, the DD Guarantee scheme forces the customer to expend time and energy (and not a little frustration) to follow time consuming efforts to recover a wrongful charge that he/she has not authorised. Another way of saying this is that the customer has become the unwitting and unpaid administrative employee of the beneficiary and settling bank. For these reasons corporations very rarely will accept as a means of payment the Standing Order system wherein the customer stipulates (and the bank is obliged to follow) the amount and date the payment is to become activated – and which bestows upon the customer all the expected rights and powers over his/her bank account. There are also untold numbers of horror stories out there about customer’s cancelling direct debits by writing to their banks. It is not that uncommon for the bank to respond that the customer must write to the corporation/drawee to ask them to cancel the DD (been there, done that, seen the film, got the T shirt – as indeed I have on most of these issues). What the law says and what happens are very often in parallel worlds. It a minefield. Lemon Twist wrote: Quote: As for the last paragraph of your comment, in most of the cases where an insurer rejects a claim, there is a good reason for it. It is up to you to make sure you understand what your policy covers you for. If you think an insurer has rejected your claim unfairly, you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) once you have exhausted the internal complaints procedure. Unquote Nonsense, too. In my view. We all know that the insurance industry will take any amount of premium they can and then start to renege when it comes to payout by using any number of dodges covered by the interpretation of small print clauses. Ultimately it comes down to the customer to consider whether they wish to expend the time and effort to fight and whether it will be financially viable to do so. Also, while you may have considerable confidence in the Ombudsman Service… I do not. The entire spectrum of regulators are ineffective and are designedly so, in my view. They give the appearance of aloof impartiality but are inclined towards partiality that favours business interests rather than the public interest. You may or may not remember Margaret Thatcher’s axiom “the market will regulate itself”. Not only was this an inside joke by those in the know (markets can no more regulate themselves than monkeys can stop scratching their balls in public), but was a charter for larceny if ever there was one. We live and breathe in a nation that is cleverly tilted towards corporate elitism. That you naturally side with the insurance industry in this discussion suggests to me that you are in some way connected to it or work in it? Lastly, you are right to suggest that I have a grudge against the insurance industry. Except it’s not really a grudge at all but more of an understanding (and a so far un-disappointed expectation) of their complete lack of ethics and morals. These attributes have been supplanted by imported business models that instil insatiable greed and avarice at the executive level in the race to boost this year’s profits to achieve this year’s bonus/profit share/promotions. Take the money and run… As you know the insurance industry and the banking industry are closely allied – often being owned by the same overall group/s.

It sounds to me to be rather typical spin to reduce paying out what is rightfully due to you. I am currently looking at the viability of taking my insurer to small claims court over another situation where the insurer is arguing what I believe to be a fallacious strategy that clearly is aimed at cheating me out of an insured claim. I think they probably do this in untold numbers of cases simply because in a large number of them people swallow their story or can't be bothered to fight. Fight the b*st*rds I say. Shoestring

It's all very well playing fair dinkums to NUD and others but let's not forget the real veiled reasons for the gradual erasure of cheques (as well as other historical banking transfer methods like standing orders). NUD's habit of selectively refusing payments by cheque form part of an across the board strategy by corporations and government to introduce - by stealth - electronic money. The purpose is that it can be easily traced. Tracking money is good for the tax authorities (although it is packaged and sold to the public under the all-purpose, all-singing anti-terrorism spin) as it severely hampers - in one fell swoop - anyone's ability to earn "black money". It also enables corporation to effectively take control over your bank account, making it by default their bank account. The increasing drive to insist that payment be by DD (or debit/credit card) means corporations can take out what amount they want when they want it. Not what amount you want when you want it. That such actions force many people into overdraft or cause a "bounce" - with all the resultant bank and corp charges - is too well known about to warrant further comment here. Personally I think the ease of explanation you have shown above in favour of NUD, simply shows you to be either beguiled, naive, or have an agenda. NUD along with most other massive transnational corporations make unseemly amounts of profit annually., They do this by cheating their customers out of due pensions, insurance payments on justified claims and other "legal" robber-baron methods of "wealth transfer". They do not deserve anyone's "understanding" concerning any additional feathering of their profits. Shoestring