Aviva contest claim via Ombudsman due to Self-Employment Clause

[hollieollo]

I will make this brief. I have successfully claim over £10000 from various companies because they all sold me PPI when they knew I was self-employed.
Only Aviva turned down my claim saying that their policy did cover self-employment. I got a copy of their policy from that time and sure enough their is a clause allowing self-employment, however, only if that self employment was doing the same thing or with the same employer for the last 2 years. At that time I was jumping from job to job, all self employed. I involved the FSO who wrote and said that they felt I had a good case. I called them today for an update, having not heard anything since January this year.
I was told that Aviva contest the case stating their self employment clause. As far as I am concerned, their clause had conditions, i.e. you had to have been in that self employment for the previous 2 years, thereby disenfranchising me immediately.
Can anybody confirm my thoughts on this, or has anybody else had a similar situation with Aviva?

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Aviva contest claim via Ombudsman due to Self-Employment Clause

I will make this brief. I have successfully claim over £10000 from various companies because they all sold me PPI when they knew I was self-employed.
Only Aviva turned down my claim saying that their policy did cover self-employment. I got a copy of their policy from that time and sure enough their is a clause allowing self-employment, however, only if that self employment was doing the same thing or with the same employer for the last 2 years.

If you work for the same 'employer' for two years you could be considered an employee even if you are invoicing as self-employed. An ET could find you were, in fact, an employee and entitled to everything an employee should be entitled to regarding redundancy, notice periods, SSP, etc.

Real self-employment means working for various clients, often more than one at the same time and their clause would seem to contravene that principle, rather conveniently. :mmph:

At that time I was jumping from job to job, all self employed. I involved the FSO who wrote and said that they felt I had a good case. I called them today for an update, having not heard anything since January this year.
I was told that Aviva contest the case stating their self employment clause. As far as I am concerned, their clause had conditions, i.e. you had to have been in that self employment for the previous 2 years, thereby disenfranchising me immediately.
Can anybody confirm my thoughts on this, or has anybody else had a similar situation with Aviva?

Not with Aviva but certainly with alleged self-employment; working for the same employer for two years is not the norm when self-employed and I should think most self-employed people wouldn't have been able to claim in view of that clause. :ohwell:

[hollieollo]

Re: Aviva contest claim via Ombudsman due to Self-Employment Clause

I should think most self-employed people wouldn't have been able to claim in view of that clause. :ohwell:

Thanks for the quick response. Yes, I felt that was the case, but the FOS were being a bit coy about what Aviva had actually said in the rebuttal. They paid my other claim against them because it was on record that their agent, Welcome Finance, used to fill in the forms for in advance and I just went into the office and signed them. There was never any discussion about PPI and I wouldn`t have known what it was at that time anyway.
My only concern now is that this will become a protracted affair and I will be waiting another 12 months or so before they get around to dealing with it. Evidently, they will have to assess whether they think they should proceed against Aviva, even though at the very outset, I gave them all the paper work along with my arguments for compensation, to which they agreed in a letter I received last January.
I guess I will just have to wait along with hundreds of thousands of others

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Aviva contest claim via Ombudsman due to Self-Employment Clause

You should have a good argument to say that the self-employment clause was so restrictive as to make it impossible for the average self-employed person, to make a successful claim.

[hollieollo]

Re: Aviva contest claim via Ombudsman due to Self-Employment Clause

Hi all,
This will be my last post on here as my final PPI claim has been settled via the Ombudsman. It has taken 18 months and an appeal, but finally Aviva has been dragged kicking and screaming to the table and had to `stump up`. It is not a large claim, mainly because I settled the loan early, however, it pans out at £1527.30. As I have explained in earlier posts, I had to get a Service Access copy of all my documents (arriving on the last acceptable day), to ascertain the levels of PPI I paid and the payments made. This case revolved around my self employment, which Aviva maintained their policy covered. However, after scrutinising the agreement wording, I found that it stipulated that a continuous period of employment(self-employment) was required to make any claim on the policy. Furthermore, in one of Aviva`s own letter, I found a comment which sealed their fate. It stated that they were aware that Welcome Finance had not discussed the PPI when I signed the loan agreement.
Initially, a junior adjudicator had ruled against my claim, so I appealed using the above information and supplying (once again) the relevant documents. This was taken by a senior adjudicator and gave the verdict my way. They had until 10th June to respond and my cheque arrived without any covering letter or explanation on 9th June!
The senior adjudicator at the FOS had not even heard from Aviva, so she got onto them straight away and today I received an apology letter plus the calculation.
I hope this serves to encourage fellow claimants to persevere. Good luck to you all.

Chris Arnfield BA, BSc