Pinnacle Sports Accident Protection www.pinnacle.co.uk

Avoid Cardif Pinnacle at all costs. To give you some background I am a self employed drilling materials co-ordinator working in the North Sea on the oilrigs therefore I took on a policy to cover Accident, Sickness & Unemployment back in December 2004. Everything was fine, Pinnacle was getting monthly payments, I was or thought I was covered then came the recession and the oil companies stopped drilling, my contract came to an end and I was forced to seek Job Seekers Allowance and suspend my company. I got Pinnacles claim form filled in including the bit from my accountant and the Job Centre and submitted it. A few days later I got a letter from Pinnacle asking for six months bank statements and confirmation that the accounts to cessate the business have been prepared and submitted to the HM Revenue & Customs. After several phone calls to explain this the outcome is that Pinnacle want my business total shut down, including the bank account before any claim can progress. I tried to explain that by closing down the business completely makes me unemployable in my trade as I work contracts with oil & gas operators and not one day jobs here and there. Needless to say this does not concern Pinnacle and I have now been forced to ditch Pinnacle and lose all the monies paid to them.

This was a straight forward accident claim (broken ankle and unable to work), and Pinnacle Sports Accident Protection did everything in their power to find ways of not paying out. Their customer service is appalling, and when challenged with a query, they seemed completely uninformed and unable to answer questions. Their faxes seem to mysteriously disappear, and forms which were supposedly sent out to me never arrived. You have to constantly chase the progress of your claim with numerous telephone calls. After realising I was not going to give in to their tactics, they eventually paid up.