I will switch health insurance companies come February.
What? You’re not surprised?
Ok, given Round One in which Erin scored a small victory, it’s probably not such a big surprise.
Now, it’s on to Round Two.
It’s time to pay my quarterly premium (remember, I pay quarterly to avoid the insurance company receiving an extra $20 for processing fees, petty, but look at who I’m up against).
I go through several different menus, enter my account about five times and am redirected two times before I finally find someone who can process my payment.
“I’d like to pay by credit card,” I said (dum, da dum dum).
“We do not accept credit card, we accept check. You still have time to send us a check in,” the snotty insurance person says.
“I can’t send you a check with quarterly premiums for both me and my sister.”
“Just a minute,” she says and begins to check my account. At least that’s what I assume since I hear keys clacking. For all I know she could be typing out an email to a coworker saying “Crazy ass bitch, line 1. Watch me deal with her.”
She stops clacking. “We show that you have already paid with a credit card.”
“Yes, in September. He told me I could call back with my credit card if it got close to my due date.”
“We allow you pay only one time by credit card,” she says in a voice reeking of superiority. We’ll see how super you are if government healthcare passes (not that I think that would be a good thing, but if this chica lost her job, I sure wouldn’t cry).
“Seriously, you’re not going to process this?” I ask.
“You can mail us in a check,” she sniffs as if I’m some low-brow pleb emitting an awful odor. How dare she sniff at me. I’m from a solid middle-class family, I may have some low-brow tastes, but how many people can name the first woman entombed in the Vatican? How many people even know that there are a total of three women entombed in the Vatican? And as far as my odor goes, I did bathe today and anyway, we’re on the phone!
Peeved, I say, “If I have to mail a check in, I will find another insurance agency. It’s not exactly hard for me to get coverage.” One of the positives to being still relatively young and of a normal weight.
“Ma’am,” she says, but I’m on a roll.
“I was not told I could only pay once with a credit card, and had I known that, I would have started looking for an insurance company right then and there.”
“Ma’am,” she says again before I get a chance to toss out the word “crooks” into my monologue. “Let me send your request off for a case study.”
“How long with that take?” I ask. Funnily enough, my tone is now snotty and she is kind of simpering.
“You will hear back from someone today,” she says and then the phone clicks in my ear.
I was a bit disappointed by the conversation, and not necessarily because I didn’t get my way. Sure, that was a contributor to my overall feeling, but this chick was not near as engaging as the last fellow was. I absentmindedly let loose a chuckle as I remember our back and forth “We prefer check-I prefer card,” argument.
And the nerve of this chick. To sit up on her thrown of policies casting blame and judgment on all of us lowly plebeians, making us feel like we were in the wrong for the calling the big, bad insurance company. Still, I did get a kick out of her seeing turn such a complete 180 when I said I would be taking my policy elsewhere. She did jump to action. True, it was a chance for her to pawn me off on someone else, but had I not received a call by 3:30 p.m., I would’ve waged my phone call campaign and continued to call until I got my way.
It’s a bit ironic. I feel like there is never enough time in the day to get things done. Then someone pisses me off and I make time to bring someone war with my phone calls.
But before the phone call war begins, I must have ammunition or a leg to stand on, if you please. I call my insurance agent. He makes commission off of my policy; he needs to do something to earn that pay. I tell them that the company will not let me renew my policy because they will not accept my credit card. I then say that if I cannot pay with a credit card, I will need some new policies to see.
Apparently, he wasn’t aware that you couldn’t pay by a credit card. With my insurance agent on my side, I feel much more secure in my position.
The day goes by. I get some work done for an event this Saturday (Another reason the insurance people don’t want to mess with is that I will get up at 4 a.m. for the next two days so I can work out, shower, and get to a place an hour away by 8 a.m.). I don’t just like my sleep, I love my sleep. If I was a fifth-grader, sleep would be that best friend that I’d have to talk to every night or else I’d feel like I would die. My passion for sleep can only be matched by my passion for books (sometimes the passions clash, like when its bedtime and I’m 50 pages from the end of a book. This isn’t a good thing.).
At 1:30, I go to tan and whiten my teeth. Yes, whiten my teeth. I know, I know, I’m a fairly vain creature. But I’m 28 and single. Not that I’m looking or want to get married soon, but I need to be on top of my looks when and if my biological clock ever starts ticking. Besides, how cool is it that for $25, I can put the same stuff on my teeth that they use at the dentist’s office and whiten my teeth, literally knocking out two birds with one stone.
When I’m done, I go to the grocery store from some candy. If only the health insurance people knew…and bam! As if someone has a crystal ball and knows what I am up to, I get a call from the health insurance company.
“I was enjoying your ringback tone,” he says to me.
Yeah, I know. It’s The Office. It kicks ass. “Oh, thanks.”
“Anyway, I’ve reviewed your case and can make an exception for you this time and this time only.”
“That’s fine, I’ll pay it, but I won’t be with you guys in the future.”
“You’re switching now?” he asks me.
“No, I want you to take this payment, but this will be the last payment you take from me if you keep forcing me to pay by check.”
“I’m sorry Ma’am, that is just out policy. I can take this one payment for you by credit card, and then that’s it.”
Since I was in the grocery store buying candy, I waxed poetically about their policies and extra charges and how I didn’t trust them (the company, not the guy who was actually fairly decent), and how they were my third insurance company in three years.
“I’m not high maintenance,” I said after I realized how that statement could be misconstrued because I had to have my “case” evaluated. “I’m just cheap.”
And thus was the end of Round 2. Maybe I wasn’t a decisive winner – I am now shopping for a new insurance carrier – but Golden Rule will no longer be able to throw a party on my dime. That being said, I think I did come out ahead.
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