Aviva is finalising another Covid-19-related rebate for its private medical insurance (PMI) customers which is likely to be worth at least £19m, Health & Protection can exclusively reveal.
Aviva announced last June it was returning £81m to its PMI customers, with the payments amounting to around six weeks’ worth of premiums for individual customers and about seven weeks’ worth for SME schemes for those covered throughout the whole pandemic period.
The further payment was revealed by Steve Bridger, managing director for health, who spoke to Health & Protection following release of the insurer’s 2022 annual results.
Bridger (pictured) told Health & Protection the insurer was committed to doing the right thing by its customers and this was the next stage in fulfilling its Covid pledge.
“We have made our first payment in terms of making good of not making excess profit due to Covid,” he said.
“We’ve already returned £81m to customers due to the Covid disruption and in all likelihood there will be a second payment.
“We’re just finalising that. The total return is likely to be in excess of £100m.”
£220m returned by insurers
In total health insurers, including Aviva’s first payment, have already made refunds totalling almost £220m to their affected customers.
In November Health & Protection revealed Axa Health had issued refunds to customers after services were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic but had not disclosed how much those refunds were worth.
As part of the process it has also donated smaller refund sums to two charities, Cancer Research UK and Maggie’s, but has not disclosed these amounts.
WPA issued rebates in April and June 2020 of around £3.7m each. The amount was equivalent to around 40% of monthly premium for all customers on both occasions.
In 2021 Bupa returned £125m in premiums to almost all eligible customers and in February 2022 The Exeter returned £5.3m to members which equated to an average of £346 per policy or two months of premiums.
