Aviva says that it has maintained its focus on call waiting and has assured that further improvements are still on track for the second quarter of the year.
The reassurance came on the day the insurer reported strong demand for its private health insurance business, with sales growth of more than 40% in 2023.
“We remained focused on our claims service and are confident that it will see continued improvements as we move into Q2 2024,” an Aviva spokesperson said when asked for a progress report by Health & Protection.
The statement backs up the comments made by Aviva UK Health managing director Steve Bridger when he spoke to Health & Protection at the annual Health Summit last month.
Bridger admitted that call waiting times at the insurer were still less than perfect, but noted it had improved and pledged advisers and customers would see near “perfection” in the second quarter of the year.
Bridger said at the time: “We start this year much more strongly. Its not perfect, but perfection will start to come through – whatever that actually means – certainly by the end of quarter one and quarter two.
”The issue of long call waiting times has been ongoing since last year, when Aviva was hit harder than most other insurers on the quality of their call service.”
On Thursday, Aviva released its annual results for 2023, but the issue of call waiting was not specifically addressed in a call with journalists that morning.
Back in July 2023, Health & Protection said the insurer was reviewing its growth plans for 2023 and 2024 and had apologised to private medical insurance (PMI) customers as it continued to tackle the issue of long waiting times for its call centres.
The following month, CEO Amanda Blanc said Aviva’s efforts to improve service levels for its PMI customers would not affect growth plans, with service expected to return to normal by the end of 2023.
