Frankly, I am having trouble remembering a trouble-free experience with any insurance company at the moment.
Two years ago, I had a health incident while on a dive trip, but it was not dive related, so I had to go solely through my regular health insurance. There was no in-network provider there, and I had to go through unbelievable hoops for more than a year to recover my supposedly covered expenses. I had to make perhaps 20 phone calls. I sent the same form in over and over again. Then I learned it was not the right form. So I sent a different one in. Then they said they did not get it. I sent it in again. I got it back--I had forgotten to fill in one obscure box in the corner, a box that simply repeated information found elsewhere on the form. I sent it in again. After a couple of months I called again. They said they had never gotten that form from me at all (even the first time), so I had to do it all over again. Eventually I wore them down and got reimbursed.
While that was going on, I met someone who once worked in an insurance claims office for another company. Someone in a situation similar to mine had sent a form to her desk, but it was misaddressed. It was supposed to be sent to the office across the hall from her for final processing. So she walked across the hall and put it on that desk. Her supervisor came to her shortly with the form. She was told never to do that. In cases, like that, she was supposed to stamp the form DENIED and return it without explanation. If the claimant calls her to ask why it was denied, she could explain that it was misaddressed, but she was not supposed to volunteer that information. She was told that most people who are denied never take it any farther. That is what happened to me--I was never told why my claims were being denied--I had to extract it from them, and it was not easy.
So that's how other insurance companies work. I have never had to make a claim to Dan.
