Life is always full of ups and downs, and often together with two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back. Being self-employed, one gets to deal with much more than the average person who works for somebody. Health insurance is one such thing. It often seems like there's more regress than progress in these areas… It is not my nature, nor my intention, to do a smear campaign though I am very inclined to speak truth. After much thought, I decided that you can figure out the name of the company… with some help. This blog is about life, and this is something that happened in mine. (Mind you, my emotional response is long gone and therefore I can calmly write about it now…)
A couple of months ago, I had done a whole bunch of research into obtaining health insurance for my hubby and myself. Between a tight budget and something labeled as a pre-existing condition, our choices were pretty limited. Still, we found something that reasonably compromised our needs and limitations. Our client-minded agent had even contacted this particular Underwriting department to make sure that I had a good chance of being approved despite my “pre-existing condition” (which by the way is just about non-existent anymore). So through our agent, we applied for the policy, which is underwritten by G*ld*n R*l* Insurance Company (based in
Long story short, GR had contracted a vendor to request my medical records (which I did much follow up with both GR and my doctor’s office to make sure they were faxed immediately) and the vendor didn’t pass it on after receiving it. Repeated phonecalls to GR did nothing. Due to “the way the phone system is [set up]”, I couldn’t be transferred to Underwriting, nor could I even speak with a Customer Service Manager. Customer Service was basically the messenger service for the Underwriting Department, and a response would take up to 48hours. (Incidentally, I never received a single one.) I told our agent about it, and he pursued the matter with GR on our behalf.
We received finally a response on the last day of July. The phonecall from our agent started with, “L, I have some news for you. Let me just say that I’m not happy with it.”
The bunch of baloney from GR included:
- a rider to not cover bee stings (how ridiculous is that?? Does that mean that if you've broken a bone before, you'll never be covered for another broken bone?)
- the choice to keep the effective date in June or change the effective date and pay the rate hike
- bumping from the Preferred Rate to Standard Rate
- (here’s the biggest lunacy of all) not insuring me because there is a 2-year clearance period for my condition
That last “reason” really bothered me. Okay, even though access to the information about clearance periods is limited to certain departments, why didn’t the underwriter tell our agent when he spoke with him/her??? That one statement would have saved our agent and us from even making the application back in June!
Maybe I’m spoiled with the way our business does business with customers, business-owners and other companies we work with. We would never jerk someone around like that, especially a customer. Our focus is always: How can we serve the Customer or Business-owner and how can we serve them better? Is it so wrong to expect that from businesses we deal with on a personal level? I feel absolutely insulted as a customer, and ashamed and horrified at such practices as a business-owner.
Let me be clear in saying that the Customer Service Reps were not the problem; rather, it is the Company’s various policies related to the way they conduct business. I’m thankful that we found out how they treat potential customers before getting approved and then having to submit a claim.
(I guess I'm still venting a little...)
Needless to say, we withdrew our application, demanded our refund, and are looking for someone else. We’re exercising our choice to pick someone worthy of our money.
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