Let me share with you my experience of a worst customer service being received from ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company. I have been a customer of ICICI Lombard from around three years and have been paying premiums towards health insurance cover for my mother.
In Feb 2009 my mother was hospitalised due to illness and I sent the claim documents for reimbursement to these guys on 26th Feb through Bluedart courier who delivered the same to their office on 27th Feb. I expected them to take 10-15 days to respond / settle my claim however till 26th march I did not received any response from their end. On March 26th I gave a call to their customer service department to enquire the status and I was asked the usual identification questions like policy number, card number etc. however these IHealthcare guys asked me some questions like.
Do you have I after the first four digit of policy number"? I think they are trained that the same indicates its a Healthcare policy and separates from their other TPA Policies but I was quite confident that my policy is being services by healthcare as the healthcard clearly indicates the same. I am not sure why these guys do not have the system to locate the TPA serving the policy or if they have the system then their executives needs training. Anyway after confirmation that my policy pertains to healthcare I was given a service request # 2603092333 with an assurance that status on the same will be provided in 24 hours.
No body called me regarding the status of this request till 05th April 2009 and I contacted them on 05th april to find that the request is still in pending status. I wanted to speak their manager/team leader and I was informed that Mr. Hari Kishore (TL) will be available on Monday at 11am as it is sunday an he is not in office. I gave a call again on 07th april to speak to Mr. Kishore however their representative Vidayshree gave me an assurance that she will get back to me in 24hrs. No body contacted me till 11th of april so as a needy customer again I have to call them back.
This time the call was picked by Mr. Syed who again asked me the entire set of questions along with "Do you have I after the policy number" though I have already given all the details in my first call but he was not able to track the info from service request. Anyway after putting me on hold for sometime he told me that they have not received any documents and I should check with my courier company. As I have already confirmed the status of shipment I told him to go to bluedart website and check with the waybill number I provided during my first call. Then immediately he changed his course and now assured me that his TL Mr. Hari Kishore will contact me within 1 Hr. I waited for 2 hours after this call but no body called me and again I have to call these guys and to my luck the call was picked by syed and he shamelessly transferred the call to Mr. Hari Kishore after putting me on hold for 2 minutes.
My first question to Mr. Hari Kishore was that what is he doing about the service request # 2603092333 and he started with again asking me the questions like waybill number for the documents, name of the person as per POD, where I sent the docs etc. After taking all these details he promised me to call back and give me status of my health claim by 6pm. I agreed considering the fact that somebody from middle management is now looking into this. Till 7 pm I haven’t received any call and this time again I called them to speak to Mr. Satish who again after asking me all the questions like Do you have I after the policy number etc... transferred me to Mr Hari Kishore..... 20 rings and no body picked the call on other side.
I have to redial them and this time the call was picked by some other rep who showed his inability to track the status because the server is down. I explained him the entire issue and this he did the same thing...transferred me to Mr. Kishore but no body picked the call on other side. By this time I was really thinking of the days when I started my relationship with ICICI Lombard for health insurance needs of self and family. Left with no other option but to call again and this time Mr. Ali started with the same set of questions but preferred to transfer me to Mr. Hari Kishore and finally I got him on line. After listening to all his excuses like that he was busy on other call etc.... and explaining him the level of customer service he and his team is delivering I was assured that they have tracked the person in correspondence department who has received the docs but he will be available on monday so they can provide the status update only on Monday.
I have been assured by Mr Hari Kishore that he will call me back on monday April 13th betwen 12 to 1 pm after confirming the status from relevant person in correspondence department..... I have no other option but to wait for his call or call back again to get my health claim documents traced and thereafter settled. Waiting for Mr. Hari’s Call.....Not sure how many more times I will have to explain the issue and answer the question "Do you have I after 4034(the first four digit of my policy Number) --- Update on 13 April At 11:45 pm today I have received a call (thanks they met some minimum standards to atleast respond back)from Shweta.
Per Shweta they are not able to trace the health claim documents that were received by them however she informed me that they are ready to process my claim in case I can send them the photocopies of all the original reports and documents that were sent earlier. Immediately I agreed to this proposal considering the fact that I have luckily kept the photocopies of the documents before dispatching them the original. I was thinking what a customer would have done in case he/she does not have the copies of docs. Anyway, the process will now start again and let’s hope this time they receive and take care of the photocopies of the documents which has been sent to them today through bluedart courier with reference to this service request hoping that all involved in the claim settlement process understand the problem and the background of this issue.
Let’s see now what we hear back from ICICI Lombard in next few days. Will update the post as soon as there is an update available to me. -April 24, 2009: Called ICICI Lombard to check the status of claim and have been informed by Mr. Satish that my claim is pending waiting some documents. I asked him to tell me the description of documents and there was every possible document on the pending list with the word Original in it like Original Discharge Summary, Orginal Medical Bills, Original Reports etc.
Oh Gosh.....gave Satish reference of previous interactions / service request # indicating that all original documents were sent thru Bluedart to your office on Feb 26th and received by Mr. Murung on 27th Feb however the same were not traceable at your end and thus after month of slogging I was informed to send the photocopies of documents so that the claim can be processed. Satish immediately tracked the service request number and gave me assurance to update their claims processing team and has adviced me to check back the status within next 2 days......... July 13, 2009: After three months of continuous follow up an sms message has been received that your claim has been approved though reimbursement check is awaited...