Medical insurance

For most insurances you must give a minimum of one months notice if you wish to not renew when it becomes due, miss that deadline and you are legally committed for a further year.

Hi,

It seems that there are a few "healthcare" insurance companies out there that are performing very poorly.  I had a similar experience with Salus Healthcare - 5 trips to their designated hospital Quiron in Torrevieja to get biopsy results due within 10 days.  2 trips to actually get an appointment as they kept putting the phone down on the appointments option and a further 2 wasted trips as the hospital failed to have the results in when assured they would.  Salus had 2 emails of complaint which to date still remain unanswered by them.  It seems that it does not matter just how bad these healthcare companies perform, they will not allow you to vary the original agreement length or cancel.  I wish Spain had the equivalent of the UK's Insurance Ombudsman.  That might begin to sort out the poorly performing companies which are only interested in making money out of you.  Rather than answer my complaint, Salus's solution was to issue a court summons for cancelling the policy outside "their terms"!

I would advise anyone looking for private healthcare insurance not to be rushed by the various expat companies out there offering assistance, but to carefully check just how good or bad these healthcare insurance providers are.  Check reviews, forums on not just the insurer, but the hospitals you are obliged to use.  Once you have been "signed up" it's too late to find you  are with an expensive dud.

Best to record everything by email, but issue notice of your wish to cancel with their performance as the reason, but bear in mind, they may still require you to pay for a full year (even if they do advertise monthly premiums and payments as Salus do - they won't allow you to switch).  Also beware that unlike the UK the cost to win in a small claims court are fairly prohibitive in Spain!

Regards and best wishes with managing to cancel.

Iain

Hi Elvira,

Sanitas give specific instructions on their website about how to cancel your policy:

"Your policy is automatically renewed each year unless it is cancelled by the policyholder.  To cancel you must give (at least) 1 month's notice (no more than 6 weeks) by telephone to head office calling 902 400 232 after 15:00 weekdays, then they will transfer you to an English speaker in the Cancellations Department."

Is this the procedure you followed?

I would always recommend noting the name of the person you speak to, along with the date and time.  I would also recommend obtaining an email address to which you can send written confirmation of your cancellation.

Kind regards, 

Kim

Good morning

Salus insurance ….been using it for years 

One of the designated hospitals is indeed Quiron which is extremely busy  It has an app on which you can book cancel and change appts  the results of tests and docs visits also are accessible on this. The phone is a problem but an e mail can be sent to help resolve problems    Many English speakers and translators available if the doc doesn’t speak English 

Regards   Kay

Thank you to all,

for giving me good sound information. I will act upon it.

Very much appreciated.