AVIVA has apologised to several thousand customers after accidentally calling them Michael in emails.
The insurer says that the mistake was caused by a technical issue, and has reassured customers that their private data is safe.
Thousands of people received a marketing email promoting AvivaPlus car insurance, but confusingly all the communications were addressed to Michael.
Aviva then apologised to its customers in a follow up email, which read: "You have recently been sent an email where we mistakenly referred to you as Michael.
"Please be assured that there are no issues with your personal data, the error was caused by a a temporary issue within our email template.
"This is below the high standards we hold ourselves to, and steps have been taken to ensure this doesn't happen again.
"Whilst the email referred to you incorrectly, the rest of the contents were incorrect."
Several customers took to Twitter to alert Aviva to the issue.
Sandra tweeted: "Hi Aviva, thanks for the email. 1) my car insurance is due in the summer 2) my name's not Michael."
Awkwardly, Aviva then made things worse by calling Sandra "Sarah" it's its Twitter response.
It said: "Hi Sarah, sorry for any inconvenience.
"We're aware of this issue, if you'd like me to remove your email from our marketing please DM your policy number and email address."
Sandra saw the funny side and replied: "First I’m ‘Michael’ via email, now I’m ‘Sarah’ on Twitter!"
Another customer was delighted by the error, as Aviva had unexpectedly hit on an old university name.
She messaged the insurer saying: "I received an email today from Aviva, which apologised for sending me an email addressed to "Michael".
"Little did Aviva know that my nickname at university 25 years ago was Michael, because of my ill-advised rather masculine haircut.
"I immediately too a screenshot and sent it to all my uni mates from the 90s, who LOVED it.
"So your mistake made my day. Thanks!"
An Aviva spokesperson told the Sun: “We sent out some emails last week to existing customers, which, as a result of a temporary technical error in our mailing template, mistakenly referred to customers as ‘Michael’.
"We’ve apologised to these customers and reassured them that the only error in the email was the use of the incorrect name as a greeting.
"There was no issue with personal data; the remainder of the email and its content was correct.”
The insurer confirmed that the erroneous email was sent to several thousand customers.
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