Double insurance goes against the principle of insurance which is to indemnify, not profit from an occurrence.
One other issue is that if you are double-insured, and the benefits are not properly coordinated, both insurance companies can point the finger at the other one and you can end up with no coverage at all (or at least a paperwork nightmare).
This happened to me as a college student when I went to the emergency room after an injury. My stepfather and mother had me on the family CHAMPUS (now TRICARE) insurance provided by the military, and my father also had listed me under his Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance. CHAMPUS has a policy that if there is any other insurance, they pay last. However, BCBS decided that, because I lived primarily with my mother, that their insurance through my father was secondary insurance, and would only pay out after the other insurance paid out–which CHAMPUS refused to do.
I had bill collectors coming after me personally for several years, impacting my credit rating. What’s worse was that neither insurance company would talk to me personally, because I wasn’t the primary insured. Out of frustration, I finally just paid the hospital’s collection agency myself out of pocket. :rolleyes: That’s what double coverage did for me. :mad:
Nitpick: $1,000 - 10% = $900.00, not 990
(somebody had to point that out.)
I had a friend that did this and when he needed the insurance NEITHER would pay saying it was the other ones responsibility. IIRC, he never did get it paid and the bill went into collections.
edit - notice robby above had same issue.
Huh - they should go based on birthdate - at least, for my kids, my insurance was always primary since my birthdate is earlier than Typo Knig’s. For us adults, we always used our own company’s policy as primary and the companies never objected.
But the friend you mention: I guess both policies are his own?
Anyway - especially these days, it’s almost never worth the hassle of having double insurance, unless the secondary is free somehow. And even then we found it wasn’t worth it.
The companies have this covered - they have coordination-of-benefits processes which see to it that only 100% gets covered.
In my experience that whole process is a clusterfuck, but you can, ultimately, get it sorted out. Sometimes.
We had a hospital bill go to collections. Typo Knig went to the ER when he developed some visual symptoms a day or so after a very nasty car accident. I made him call the doc, who sent him for a CT scan. Primary paid their share, secondary dragged it on for MONTHS. I’d call, they’d send it back for review, and they’d sit on it for weeks until I called again. Not denying it, just not doing a DAMN thing about it. And yes, ultimately they paid, but I suspect there was an informal (or hell, maybe formal) internal policy to attempt to delay such payments until the claimant gave up.
If you profit every time you go to the doctor, you’re going to go to the doctor an awful lot.
No, it’s totally different. If over-insuring were allowed, “scamming” wouldn’t even be scamming–you would incur medical costs, honestly report them to each of your 20 carriers, and profit.
To defraud a single carrier, you have to work a lot harder–by claiming to incur costs that you really didn’t, or lying about your risk.
We do. Both my husband and I carry dental insurance and it’s been great- ended up covering most of my son’s braces for a pittance every paycheck. For an extra $200/month we can get a second health policy (I carry ours now and my husnband can get his through work) and we’re strongly considering it.
Double insure, how about Deca-Insure?
Two people I know have hospital policies that pay directly to them, not the hospital, they also are covered by health insurance that does pay the hospital. Since they spent about 4 weeks a year each in the hospital, Ten (sometimes more) policies pay them directly each time they are in the hospital.
Fraud? Probably. A little scam they have had going on 20 years now. They are constantly having policies dropped by the insurance companies but there are plenty more lined up to give them more.