Your perception of insurance companies?

[panader0]

Poll question: Your perception of insurance companies?

I have no health, life or home insurance and carry only what is required on my vehicles. It has been my personal experience that insurance companies will do anything to screw you out of what you thought was your coverage. Just one example; before my dad passed away his house was vandalized and burglarized. The insurance company he had been paying for years refused to get a police report and when the kids were caught, they refused to pay off, citing that the kids were ordered to make restitution. (At $20.00 a month for years and they never finished) Look at what happened with Katrina. The insurance companies have armies of "agents" whose job it is to find a way to deny your claim. The vast majority of us would be better off to put a dime in a tin can every month than buy insurance that will be denied anyway. O.K., it's obvious how I feel about Insurance companies. How do you guys feel?

[Trailrider1951]

1. You didn't include the description

"Blood sucking parasites" so I chose the closest one.

[tk2kewl]

2. Both 2 and 3

:evilfrown:

[BurtWorm]

3. Insurance companies are an essential part of the most irrational health care funding system

in the world. You buy insurance so you "don't have to worry" should the time come for you to pay for health care. They're in the business to do everything in their power to keep from having to pay for your health care.

This system is insane.

[acmavm]

4. Insurance is legalized gambling.

edit: to add that bookies are far more honorable than insurance company execs.

[BOSSHOG]

Let me share what my Congressman said on the subject after Katrina

Gene Taylor (D), Mississippi:

There should be a national registry of insurance agents, like there is for sex offenders, so you know whether one lives next door to you or not.

[SutaUvaca]

5. A form of organized crime. n/t

[mopinko]

6. i have blue cross, and state farm.

i cannot tell you how much my family has cost blue cross. they have never, ever given my a hard time. ever. i have 2 kids who would be dead without them.
i haven't had too many state farm claims, but i have gotten dividend checks a couple of times.
i cannot explain exactly what the legal structure of both of these companies are, but i believe that both are basically non-profit, co-op type structures.

i do agree that health care is a fucked up, convoluted system. i know there are lots of other people who could not save their children. it desperately needs fixing. but i do not think that the blame for that rest on the insurance companies. blame it on the "whatever you do, cut my taxes" dumb ass voters.

[Orangepeel]

14. another thumbs up for blue cross

my husband has had many serious medical problems and they have been very, very good about it. There were no problems when either of us switched jobs, he was on COBRA for a while before we got married and they didn't balk...

Seriously, if you are lucky enough to work for a employer through which you can get Blue Cross and can possibly make your part of the payments, it is worth the money.

Based on personal experience, I was strongly in favor of Kerry's health care proposal during his campaign, which was to let everyone buy into the same insurance that federal employees can. Not as good as universal coverage, but possibly a life saver for many.

[shain from kane]

7. The 3 rules of insurance industry:

1. Buy as much insurance as you can afford.
2. Pay your premiums on time.
3. Don't submit any claims.


I read this in Weekly World News years ago.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. It's a huge rip off scam for consumers

Health insurance is way overpriced and if you actually use it, it will either go up or you'll get canceled. Home insurance has so many out clauses for the provider that most of the consumers never knew to ask about. Then there's the huge auto insurance industry. I loved the way they used peoples credit history to raise long time policy holders premiums when they had never been late on a payment to the insurance company and their driving history was perfect.

[Marrah_G]

9. I work in a life insurance brokerage

For families I think life insurance is vital, especially if you own a home. Without it, if the main bread winner dies then the surviving spouse is left in a huge financial bind.

As far as life insurance goes, my advice is to (if you have a family) buy young, buy term (not accidental) with return of premium (you get the money back at the end of the term if you do not die...tax free)and buy enough to soften the blow to your family in the event of your death. Waiting until you are older and sicker costs alot more. Also keep in mind smoking almost doubles the cost. One final thing: Make sure you are quoted the STANDARD rate, and unscrupulous agent will try and sell you super preferred (which you wont get unless you are superman) and then when it comes back standard they try and talk you into the higher price. Online sites are infamous for this.

Disability, if your company or state doesn't have it can really save your house if you get hurt or sick (be very careful what sort you buy though, some cover you if you can't do YOUR job, others only cover if you can't do ANY job).

Health, should be Universal single payer like every other 1st world, industrial country on the planet.

Car, necessary evil, I hate my states regulations though (massachusetts) they have very little choice in pricing.

Home owners, again necessary evil and needs far more oversight. The Katrina mess brought that to light in a huge way.

Note: please make sure when buying a policy you read it very carefully and call the policy holder services number with any questions you have. This avoids any "mistakes" by the agent. I know in our field we find alot of people with policies that were not what they thought.

Yes there are some scumbag agents out there but I know in this office the agents take alot of pride in ethics and integrity...something encouraged by my very liberal, veteran for peace boss :)

[Bjornsdotter]

10. And don't get sick outside the US

...they won't pay.

Cheers

[KansDem]

11. They're parasites...(eom)

[cloudbase]

12. Ambrose Bierce had something to say about that:

“Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.”

When he was writing for a (I believe) San Francisco newspaper, he wrote something in an article similar to this:

Somebody robbed an insurance company today. Tit for tat.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

16. Bierce is wonderful

Thank you for posting his definition - it is spot on.

For anyone who's never had the chance to read it, here's a link to the full text of his Devil's Dictionary.

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Bierce/DevilsDictionary/A-E.html

[baldguy]

13. Insurance is a cross between a Ponzi scheme and gambling.

In NY it's actually written into the law that while it may APPEAR to be a Ponzi scheme, or may APPEAR to be gambling - it really isn't. Why? Only because it's defined in the law that way. You can't take bets on when Grandma is gonna die, but if you call it "insurance" it's legal.

[PA Democrat]

15. Greedy pigs.

My husband is self-employed and the premiums for health insurance are obscene, but we've managed to keep continuous coverage. We recently had to switch providers. Last month I had to undergo a procedure which may have saved my life, and at the very least prevented much more invasive and EXPENSIVE treatment. I had no prior symptoms or treatment, but the fucking insurance company is bombarding me with paperwork trying to deny payment. Under HIPAA, I don't think that there is any way they can deny payment even if it was a "preexisting condition" (which it was NOT), but the fuckers sure as hell are trying. They requested FIVE YEARS of information on my past doctors visits as well as pharmacy records.

Wonder why health insurance is so expensive? When profit driven corporate policies dictate spending obscene amounts of money to DENY health care, people will die unnecessarily.

[Marrah_G]

17. Another example of why we need universal health care

[WI_DEM]

18. I work in a hospital and deal with insurance companies daily and they will do anything to get out of

paying. They put such extreme conditions on things. If you don't call regarding an admission within a certain time even if it's over night when they are closed or over the weekend they won't pay the full benefit. Blue Cross is one of the worse, imo. If the customer has a hard time getting hold of a person when they call the insurance company it's a hundred times harder for a health care provider--it's like a maze!! I hate them. I wish we had National Health Insurance--a single payer system.

[RB TexLa]

24. But it's not like there have never been doctors or hospitals that have fraudulently overbilled

insurance companies.

[baldguy]

19. Ye oldest scamme in the worlde

http://archive.salon.com/comics/tomo/2001/07/02/tomo/index.html

[MN ChimpH8R]

20. The only place you can literally practice piracy

with perfect legality is the insurance industry. :grr:

There they make their money the old-fashioned way - extorting it from the peasants at the point of a sword.

[kiahzero]

21. That's right!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

22. I completely agree with you except ... as to organized gambling

The mafia found out that it was easier to get people to just bring them money instead of extorting it or stealing it when they founded Las Vegas. And if you develop a skillful means to beat the house fair and square, like card counting at the Black Jack table, they either take you into the desert and beat you up or even murder you or they bar you from the casino for life.

But insurance companies are far more crooked because we truly NEED them. Gambling at least is a matter of choice.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

23. They are the work of Satan.

[Raine]

25. Blood sucking leeches

that's my opinion of them. :puke:

[Jacklyn75]

27. I agree with you! n/t

[salin]

26. In an earlier era I would have answered this differently

but in recent times, many insurance companies have taken such an adversarial - don't pay out even when there is no question - stand that it seems almost as if there is no point to insurance in the first place.

I know someone whose child was in an auto accident. Serious brain injury. The other driver admitted guilt (drove through a red light - there was zero question about responsibility). The child was in a coma. The child has suffered serious changes. All documented, tested retested and retested many times over. For more than two years the insurance company fought to pay nothing, then to pay far less than the initial medical bills. There was NO question in the case. After three years (long after most folks would just end the fight - esp due to mounting bills) there finally was a settlement. This is one case - but reading about many, many others (highest profile are the Katrina/Rita victims) that one really has to ask why we pay so much money out every year if the likelihood of actually receiving coverage has dropped to a small percentage. We may not be there yet (where payout becomes very rare) because on small claims, I think that payouts often still occur (or at least they did five years or so ago, the last time my family had any reasons to file a small home owners claim after a severe storm). However I think we are getting to that place (where one rarely receives the coverage/payouts one pays for) in the near future. In which case - if it is as much of a crap shoot as to whether or not one will be covered as it is as whether one will be struck with some unfortune than we have to ask... is this a racket?

[B Calm]

28. My perception of insurance companies is UNDER REVIEW and

I probably will have to deny any perceptions.

[Auggie]

29. Analogous to the gaming industry. The odds are in their favor to come out on top.

[Odin2005]

30. Insurance is one of the biggest scams in the history of mankind.

It's like lending someone an umbrella when it's sunny out then asking for it back when it starts raining. It's all about getting the low-risk people give them money while they give the people at high risk the finger.

[UTUSN]

31. It's a RACKET!!1 a SCAM!!1 a SNAKE OIL!!1 n/t

[Swamp Rat]

32. I like '0's

;) :D :hi: