The man who wasn't from the Pru but another health insurance company visited as promised and what was meant to be approx 1 hour long took almost 2 hours.

What a lot of questions! He was very thorough and went through my family history, work history and even covered some financial things. When he wasn't sure about something he asked for more details and repeated things back to me to make sure he had understood what I was saying. He was polite and professional but you could tell from the first questions that he was working for an insurance company.

At the end of the questioning he told me I was a very interesting case and certainly not the sort of person who he would normally see in his line of work. He told me not to rush back to work but go back when I knew I was ready and the earliest this should be is at the end of my current CBT sessons (5 more weeks). He understood that I had some real problems and that they needed dealing with and that I was doing everything I could and that as much as could be done at this stage was already happenning. The most reassurng thing he said was that my employers definitely want me back. I wish I could tell you more about my employers because they have been absolutely outstanding.

One interesting thing was that I commented about my opinion that I'm not sure that the years of counselling was that helpful and he got a bit defensive. I later found out that was what he was doing before this job so I guess it wasn't surprising really. He must have also been paid well as even with the economy as it is he is moving house, he had a very nice expensive car and he was wearing what looked like a nice suit (not that I would really know I've been wearing jeans and t-shirt to work for nearly the last 10 years!).

So if an insurance company says I'm ill - I will accept that as official. If anyone was going to find out if I was a fraud, just avoiding work or something else I am sure he would have worked it out.