Insurance search, a cautionary tale

   Change is inevitable in our world. You either embrace it, or get run over by it. Change means making decisions, ideally informed and educated decisions whenever possible. Which means being pro-active. Getting information ahead of time so that when it is time to make the actual decision, you are reasonably prepared.
 
    But getting that information can be tricky and downright dangerous. Even if you have been successful in the past at hunting and gathering, you might find that it is easy to do something stupid, like petting a bear instead of shooting it.

This week I did something stupid.

No, it wasn't sharing coffee with a frog.

It was worse. It was sharing information. I might as well have pet a bear.

      We are currently faced with a change that will affect our health insurance. The need to make a decision looms in the not too distant future. Being proactive, I decided to do some tentative hunting and gather some information. Our final decision will be made with the assistance of well educated and well informed advisers, but I wanted to have some preliminary data by which I could make some comparisons. Besides, I had a little free time and a computer on my hands.

Turns out, that is a deadly combination.

   Now while I am not an internet expert, I have have had my fair share of successes in the past while looking for information to make important decisions that will impact my family. I have researched and evaluated car insurance packages and pricing. I have compared mortgages for refinancing my home.  I have even researched cars and campers. None of these decisions could be taken lightly. The internet proved invaluable in providing me with the data I needed to help make decisions. Although the internet was not the only tool I used, it was the basis from which I started to make useful comparisons.

So why should it be any different with health insurance?

   When making comparisons for car loans, mortgage refinancing, and even car insurance, I was careful to start my search using sites that were either trusted sites recommended to me or sites that have a .org designation. These latter sites are generally used by non-commercial entities, like universities and non-for profit groups, as well as open source groups. However, beware, there are no restrictions on who may use this designation.

   I had selected one such .org designation that purported to provide the user with comparison policies for review. According to what I understood when reading the information on the site, they would take a look at what kind of policy I was hoping to obtain and send me information on three different insurance carriers that provided such policies and what price ranges they offered. Feeling like this is exactly the kind of preliminary information I wanted to receive, I went ahead and put in my name and email address (I used a non-primary address), as well as a few details on what type of policy I was looking for. The site also insisted that I put in a phone number. I did think this was a bit odd, as the site was just supposed to send me some information, but the wording indicated that they needed this information to complete my request and ensure that I was a legit person. There was even a CAPTCHA to prove that I was not a robot.

   I should know better. Correct that, I do know better! I am reluctant to give out my phone number at the doctor's office. I don't know what made me do it. I blame it on stress. And hormones, yes, I think hormones played a definite role. Thankfully I put in my home number.

   No sooner had I hit the send button, my phone rang. I answered it, without checking the caller ID. Caller ID on our home number is a fairly new novelty, so I almost never look at it. We have a number of projects going on around the house, so the phone rings frequently.

   It was some insurance company wanting to talk to me about my application. As they started their spiel, the hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle. Something in their presentation was not right and I said no thank you and hung up. Then the phone rang again. Same company. I politely asked them to remove my number from their list and hung up. Then the phone rang again, this time different insurance(?) company that was going to help me out, they just needed me to let them know what kind of policy I was looking for, was it for myself or my family. I asked them to remove my number from their list. After all, that information was on the form I had filled out on the web site, if they couldn't bother to read it, I couldn't bother to do business with them.

   Then the phone rang again. Guess who was calling? Yep, another insurance group. After ten minutes and eight phone calls, I stopped answering the phone. In the next thirty or forty minutes the phone rang no less than eighteen times. According to my call logs, several of the companies called repeatedly, spacing the calls no less than one minute apart. Nearly all the calls were anonymous.

   This continued the next morning with bombardment of phone calls until I had basically blocked all the incoming numbers that appeared on my call log and subscribed to Nomorobo (a call blocking service that eliminates robot calls) which works with my phone service (our home number is a VoIP service). If anyone wonders, I use AT&T.

Thankfully these action have ceased the ringing and brought a peace to our home.

   Oddly enough, I only received one email. This from site where I had placed my information, letting me know that they were there to help me and I might receive a few calls. 

YA THINK?

   I really didn't bother to read the rest of the email.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1. There are a lot of healthcare scams out there. I found this out in my subsequent research.
2. Don't trust any site that mentions Obamacare, even if it .org. Legit sites will not use this terminology.
3. Hard-core pressure tactics still only make me angry. Not very effective in selling me anything. Just the opposite. If anyone tries to pressure you into a sale, hang up.
4. I like call blocking features. 
5. I think I am going to like Nomorobo service. It is free to consumers (not businesses) and is meant to block automated calls to your home. This includes political calls! But according to the information provided by both my phone service and the Nomorobo company, will not block automated calls from my doctors, schools or pharmacies. There were others types of legitimate calls listed that it will not block, but hey, I found call blocker feature for any of those I don't like!

   Anyone can be fooled. Hopefully in my case, not more than once in the same arena.