Damn Insurance Companies

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay. I understand fraud. Mmhmm. Yes I do. I know ins. cos. need lotsa paperwork for claims. Okay.

Ya GOT your damn paperwork, READ IT! Does it not say he was in INTENSIVE CARE for 10 days??? Rehab hospital for another TWO WEEKS??? In rehab outpatient for another TWO MONTHS??? So tell me, how can you say he DID NOT qualify for disability?? He did not “meet requirements”. HUH??? Will you please kindly (with sugar and cream on top) tell me how exactly he doesn’t “meet requirements”? What exactly does it take? Ya wants pictures, I can send you some. Of him hooked up for FIVE days to a trachi-whateveryoucallem. Tubes running in and out of him for several days. How it took him over THREE weeks to walk without assistance. Oh, and I have pics of the car too. Now, hehe, the hospital and others knew he was alive, of course, but the auto pound listed the car as a fatality. Hmmm. Mmhmm. Maybe ya got youse idiot information from there.

I know BxxxCxxxxBxxxSxxxxx won’t be reading this. For everyone else, my son is doing FANTASTIC!! He has recovered fully and is back at work, I thank God for his (I call it a) miraculous recovery. And I do have a lawyer working on it.

But it just pisses me off that it has to be such a hassle. Really, what do insurance companies need for proof? The lawyer has already called the damn place Several times trying to get his disabilty approved. “We need more proof. We need this We need that.” Hell, can I PLEASE just send them some damn pics for proof that he COULD NOT WORK for awhile? Or would that start another avalanche of paperwork, proving he really was that person in the picture. Would a copy of his drivers license be good enough? Or would they need DNA samples? Oh wait, what would that prove?

DAMN INSURANCE COMPANIES AND THEIR PAPERWORK. May they roast over a fire created from the vast amount of paper they seem to crave.

2

I despise insurance companies for probably just about all of the reasons that you do.

Even though you pay them month after month, they’ll do everything in their power to see that you never have a dime of it back. And too many times, they get away with it. I almost got arrested once because of a goof they made in my records and were absolutely vehement against correcting.

-Ashley

3

Bastards. I’m glad to hear your son is recovering.

We got insurance for our new car and signed up with a new provider. In spite of repeatedly telling them we wanted monthly premiums the arseholes took out a year’s worth in one lump sum. When we rang to tell them to Give It Back they said no can do, sorry but it is impossible for us to reverse the transaction. Then they sent me a letter thanking me for my call.

Bastards.

4

Primaflora, you reminded me of that other insurance company. Yeah, they can suck too.

My son was a passenger in someone else’s car, so this is one hassle he doesn’t have to deal with. The car was brand new, the owner had had it for two months, ins. payments of over $300 due to full coverage, etc. Parashit refused to pay off the car! Oh, they would give him another same exact vehicle, same payments, but if he wanted to write off the car and shop for another one, he would have to pay almost a thousand dollars (maybe more) because the instant he drove the car off the lot, it decreased in value. :rolleyes:

Insurance is a good thing to have when you need it. Hopefully you never will need to file a claim. But, dammit, when you do, you should be promptly and fairly reimbursed. Insurance companies damn sure don’t let US get away with not paying on time.

5

Primaflora…the answer to that dilemma is simple. Get another insurance carrier, then cancel the one who took your year’s premium in advance. They’ll have to refund you the unused portion of your premium. Then never do business with them again.

6

Don’t forget the third part of the equation; you get to pay them money month after month, they act like you’re trying to get blood from a stone to try to get any money out of them if you have to claim, and if you have managed to successfully make an insurance claim, then they increase your insurance rates because you are now a bad risk. Oy vey.

7

Ah, yes. I had quite a tussle with BxxxCxxxxBxxxSxxxxx myself. I was hospitalized for three weeks with a spinal injury, and BxxxCxxxxBxxxSxxxxx refused to pay the more than $10,000 hospital bill, calling it a “pre-existing condition” (their reasoning being that if I had not had a spine in the first place, this never would have happened).

Being someone WITH a spine, I was no one to fuck with. I went to the New York State Board of Insurance, explained the situation to them. They wrote to BxxxCxxxxBxxxSxxxxx and told them, “pay up NOW or lose your lisense.”

Maybe you should try whoever in your state lisences BxxxCxxxxBxxxSxxxxx?

8

I despise my current car insurance company, USAA. First off, whenever I have had to make a claim from them, they want me to do all the legwork. A few years ago I was in an accident in which a police officer took a statement from a witness - except he didn’t, he listened to the witness, sent her away, and made no note of her identity or story. So I had to try and track down this person, which I miraculously was able to do, after a few weeks. When I let USAA know about this, they said, “You need to call the police department and find out why this officer didn’t write down the witness information.” I was amazed. I replied with, “No, I don’t think so. That sounds like the sort of thing I pay you people to do. I don’t know where you are, but here in Louisiana we don’t call the police and ask why they didn’t do their job.” They are the laziest bunch I’ve ever seen, and it’s hell to try and get them to not just settle halfway on a claim.

In addition, they have partnered up with various other places, such as Sprint, and send me Sprint advertising materials in USAA envelopes. I have asked them time and again to not send me junk mail in their envelopes but they continue to do so.

When I got married and moved to Illinois, I decided to dump them once and for all, and we went with All State. My wife, who knew nothing about insurance, had us at NO deductable, which would have cost a fortune. It turns out we didn’t have to worry, because two weeks after we were approved and we had told USAA to FOAD, All State says “Oh, by the way, we decided to look at your driving record, and because of that, we’re cancelling you. But we’ll give you a month’s grace period.” You only decided NOW to look at my record? Fortunately, during that grace period, my car was vandelized, and All State had to foot the bill for it, since we had no deductable. It was nice to screw an insurance company for a change.

Since neither of us had the time or the know-how to shop around, we went back to USAA, I’m ashamed to say.

9

*featherlou AMEN! Here in Texas we have mandatory auto insurance. That’s fine, everybody should have it. But IMHO rates should be regulated somewhat like health insurance, i.e.: everybody pays nearly the same rate and rates should NOT go up just because you file a claim. Hell, the paperwork is a nightmare either way, so more regulations probably would not add much more hassle.

Good news. Just got a call from the lawyer, BCBxxxxx has finally approved his STD :eek: short term disability and sent a check. It is short three weeks, however. More paperwork to prove J had to get a doctor’s signoff to go back to work, but at least he gets some money for now.

<Aside> My laugh for the day: While I was on hold waiting for lawyer RF, the hold music was “If the devil danced in empty pockets, he’d have a ball in mine.” Very appropriate for a lawyer’s office I say :).

10

Yep. I admit it. I’ve worked for insurance companies before. Mostly health insurance. I’ve got a pretty decent working knowledge of it. And, while I’m sympathetic to the plights of you all, I understand (not necessarily condone, but understand) some of the rationals behind insurance companies acting the way they do. When I worked for BxxxCxxxxBxxxSxxxxx, someone I worked with remarked that you have to work for an insurance company to understand it. Not many truer words have ever been spoken. First of all, Eve had a good point when she mentioned the department of insurance. Insurance companies have to work within state and federal guidelines in everything they do. And sometimes the two don’t agree. I don’t know what state you’re in, but a few years ago, Kentucky passed a State Healthcare Reform that screwed the insurance companies over big. So much so that all but two pulled out. Humana and BC/BS. The laws that were passed were so strict that it was impossible for the companies to make any profit. And keep in mind that insurance is a business. Just like any other business. And, like any other business, they don’t like to operate without a profit margin. The problem is that, since they are in the healthcare industry, they tend to make an easier scapegoat than some other company. Since the state regulates how much the insurance companies can get away with , the majority of them like to skirt right up to the edge of being illegal. After all, it’s generally okay to be unethical as long as it’s legal, right? If you want to blame anyone for the insurance situation in this country, blame the government. If the government had a tighter leash on the insurance companies, then maybe the system would work better. In any business, you are going to encounter unethical people, people that are not afraid to use any advantage presented to them to try to make another buck. Nothing different with insurance. I don’t agree with all the insurance company policies and procedures. But I also understand that, bottom line, they are just like any other business.

11

As I said in the OP, Superdude, I understand needing proof and that does take a lot of paperwork. And I know there are people out there who are dishonest and insurance companies (all companies for that matter) have to have safeguards against fraud. I am just ranting that it took seemingly forever to get his STD approved. I am going from memory here, J has the letter, but I believe the first denial letter said something about ‘not enough proof’. He was in ICU for ten days, didn’t that get anyone’s attention? How do you fake ICU?

I just need to remember what sis said, keep ALL paperwork and document document document.

Also, Superdude, what do you think of my suggestion for auto insurance rates to mirror like those of the health industry? Good idea, bad idea? You said you worked in health insurance, not auto, but do you have an opinion on that? Getting gubment involved is a necessary evil. People complain about government intrusion, but without it we would be up the creek without a paddle.

Life’s a beach, where’s the party?

12

They were substantially cheaper than the other companies. Like scarily cheaper. I know, I know! Mr P got a bee in his bonnet and we did it his way.

On the plus side they rang me today after my stiff letter and have refunded me the money and switched us to monthly premiums. I think we’ll do some more shopping around for another carrier.