> Posted by Sergio Guzmán
Things at the Center have been going at lightning speed lately with the launch of the new Smart Campaign website and our other activities. That has left me with some backlog; I apologize to the readers for not bringing up the issue I discussed in previous posts, regarding my complaint to ALICO (AIG Life Insurance). You can read more about it here and here.
On November I received a response from the Defensor del Cliente, an external party to the insurance company that acts like an ombudsman to consumers of financial services. This response was a formal decision that was made regarding the complaint. In this case, my inconformity with the way my private information was said to be handled.
In their decision, the Defensor del Cliente ruled that AIG in fact did not explain properly the way it would handle my information and that the mistake was on the part of the insurance officer. At the same time, the Defensor also summarized the company’s rebuttal to my claims stating that any information that I provide them would be treated under the current banking secrecy laws and that in no way it will be sold to third parties, which was my main concern. Having said this, the Defensor ruled that ALICO complied properly with the rules established by the financial superintendence. You can read the entire ruling (In Spanish) in this linked PDF.
With this, I have accepted the ruling, and, in fact, I signed the insurance policy. It took a long time before I signed the policy, and I am happy that was an ombudsman, the Defensor, serving as an intermediary to facilitate the conversation between the insurance provider and me. In an upcoming post I will talk more about how microfinance institutions promote their ombudsmen and the type of complaints they receive as a way to deal with the principle “Mechanisms for Redress of Grievances.”
