A friend of mine (in California) is have problems with her medical insurance company taking an unreasonable amount of time to deposit her checks. They regularly take over two weeks (and on one occasion have cancelled her coverage for lack of payment).
While there is the old adage “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence”, she is on COBRA, so presumably they would much rather not have her as a customer. So its quite believable to me that this is there way of getting rid of her.
Of course, currently she has no way proving that the problem is with her insurance company not the USPS (she sends her checks in the regular mail). But if she does decide to send the checks via registered mail (which would require a non-PO-box address), can she demand that they deposit the check a certain date after they received the check? Or is perfectly legal for insurance company to wait two weeks after receiving a check before depositing ? (Or more importantly if you have a record from USPS showing they received the check two weeks ago, but they haven’t deposited yet, can they still cancel your coverage ?).
I thought COBRA was managed through the employer? IOW, former employee/plan participant sends payment to previous employer/plan administrator and the previous employer/plan administrator pays the insurance company? I don’t think any of the former employees that take COBRA at my company pay the insurance company directly, they all send a check to our benefits administrator.
When I was on COBRA a few years ago, I sent the checks directly to the insurance company. The way it worked, or should I say the way it appeared to work, was that I was working directly with the insurance company, and the former employer was altogether out of the picture, but the insurance company was bound by the COBRA law to continue my coverage on essentially the same terms as when I was employed there.
Whether it’s legal or not doesn’t really matter. If she has proof that the insurance company received the check on Day 1 and deposited the check on Day 15 and she suffered negative consequences (i.e. cancellation) as a result of the delay, all she needs to do is call up the state insurance commission in her state and they will straighten things out.
I think the whole point of OP was that there ISN’T any such proof. If you send your check by regular snail-mail without registering it or asking for return-receipt, how could you prove such a thing?
The point was that she could get that proof. But it’s going to be a lot of hassle finding a non-PO-box address that would accept registered delivery. And as the check will not being going to the regular address they could even use this as a reason to take even longer to process it.
How exactly would this work? Would this actually straighten things out or would it end up at the bottom of big pile of cases marked “insurance companies trying to stiff people”.
And surely for them to do something there has to be regulation somewhere that say hanging onto a check for 14 days ISN’T ok.
What are you a communist ? Next you’ll be asking them to play soccer and drive round roundabouts
Generally this is far harder in the US than in other countries. I was amazed that the high tech looking online bill pay feature on my bank’s website, actually results in a check being printed and mailed to the company :rolleyes:
The lease I signed on a garage this year was the first time I have EVER had a landlord in the US accept electronically, rather than via a physical check (in the UK I never had a landlord require a physical check).
Ah yes, modern technical stuff is not the American way, it’s done as the founding fathers intended it, after all, they were the smartest people ever. Sorry for forgetting that a nation among the first in computer tech can’t change their unique way and adopt what other countries do.
:rolleyes: There are plenty of companies that will take electronic payments directly from a bank, instead of requiring a paper check.
When I do my banking online there’s an indicator of which payees will get the payment electronically, and which ones they’ll print & mail a check to. The second category has been shrinking steadily IME.
Maybe her bank has a service that will generate a cheque and mail it automatically for her? That would take care of the “prove you mailed it on time” requirement?
You can get a proof of mailing at the post office showing they accepted your letter on that date. This is much cheaper than return receipt and the destination can be a post office box or whatever.
We do this when sending in our tax returns. If you ask for a return receipt for your tax returns the local post office signs the post card and delivers it to you the next day. They do not have someone sign the post card at the IRS office. The post office is authorized to do this because they are also a government agency.
That you have this distinction at all is :rolleyes: to Europeans - I can transfer funds to all companies bigger than a mom& pop shop. No, even those would have a business bank account. I can’t offhand think of a single institution where I can’t transfer funds.
And I don’t need internet banking for this, either, I can do it by telephone banking, or by putting a transfer authorization form at my bank’s letter box (depending on circumstances what’s easier).
Based on my experience, I’m pretty confident it would actually straighten things out. I’ve had dealings with insurance regulators in 3 different states and they’ve always been pretty good at promptly and effectively dealing with problems like this.
