A question for insurance agents

[scottcsmith]

About a year ago my wife purchased life insurance, and recently she purchased some additional insurance. As usual she went to her agent and filled out all of the paperwork.

Tonight she received a strange phone call from someone claiming to be with the customer service department of the insurance company. The person calling started asking questions about our income, the reasons we had the policy, and then at one point requested her social security number. This struck me (and my wife) as suspicious and she ended the call. She recently was the victim of identity theft, so she thought the questions the "customer service" person was asking were a little odd. Does that sound like standard procedure? When she purchased the first policy a year ago there was no follow-up call by "customer service" to confirm our personal information. In fact, she was told by her insurance agent that he'd contact her directly if he had any questions for her.

Opinions? Suspicious call or standard procedure?

[muffin_man]

1. I work in a credit card fraud department but

it is common place that you never under any circumstance give out SSN number over the phone UNLESS you intiate the call thus knowing who your are talking to.If you call your insurance/credit card they may ask you to veri your SSN or the last 4 and that is acceptable.To be on safe side never give out info to a incoming caller ask for the company name and then locate a contact number for that company yourself.

[unblock]

2. you did the right thing.

even if it was a legitimate call, then there's no harm in ending the call, calling back at a number you know to be legit, and ask them what's going on.

it does, though, sound like a scam to me. NEVER give your social to anyone unless YOU initiated the contact.

a legitimate check should already know that information if they needed it at all.