Complaint Review: United American Insurance - Mckinney Texas

Skepticaloptimist claims that the company must intentionally release the policies late so that the 30 day free look is not valid. This is really impossible, since the 30 days does not begin until the policyholder has taken possession of the policy and signed for it. In other words, the coverage may begin on the 1st of the month, and physically delivered to the policyholder on the 15th. The 30 days starts on the 15th. So many people want to blame the insurance company for being deceptive, crooked, etc. Realistically, we all know that companies are made of of people, some good, some bad. What everyone needs to keep in mind is that rarely is an insurance company's overall mission to screw people over. The company issued a policy, which is a binding contract. If they repeatedly do not do what the contract calls for then they will be in big trouble. I would bet that 99.99% of all the consumer complaints regarding insurance companies come down to 2 things: 1) an insurance agent who is being crooked and deceptive, or 2) a consumer that hears what they want to hear, does not bother to fully read their contract, or just buys by price and doesn't care about benefits until it's time to use the coverage and then isn't happy because they don't have 100% full coverage for $100 a month. Either way, it is not going to be an insurance company that is conspiring to screw everybody. There are too many watchdogs, insurance commissioners, etc to keep them straight. You get what you pay for with insurance as well as everything else in life.

Part of the problem is, UA has too many policies, and it is impossible to know what is covered and what isn't. Further, the last I heard, the company is trying to promote the "gap" policies (filling in what other cos) won't cover, because, apparently, the "flex" policies aren't that great. So many agents consider them "major medical", but they (flex policies) are not. It seems to me, UA keeps changing its mind on different things, hence, the confusion. Also, too many people trying to sell. I'll be tough in these times now. Glad i'm out.

I was really annoyed by "Fantastic" 22's comments to this poster. So annoyed, in fact, that I signed up with the site just to respond. This poster did not do anything wrong except to have bad luck with the health of one of his family members. If you would bother to read some of the other complaints you would see that frequently customers do not even receive their copy of the policy until AFTER their 30 day "look see" has passed them by, negating any opportunity to back out of the deal if they decide the insurance isn't up to snuff after all. I believe that this is done by the company in a purposeful fashion in order to minimize cancellations. I am SO fortunate. I have multiple serious health issues, and there but for the grace of God go I. I was hospitalized twenty times last year and had three surgeries and fourteen multiple unit blood transfusions. I was on an excellent bcbs cobra policy which costs me about $325 monthly, and it covers all but about $300 to $500 per hospital stays of multiple days, including surgeries, with $10 to $30 copays for very expensive meds, such as procrit. And the plants around here let me jump back on their bcbs groups for a few months when my cobra is due to lapse and then I jump off onto cobra again. On and off repeatedly so that I never lose coverage and end up like this poor gentleman's wife - because that is ABSOLUTELY what would happen to me with my pre-existing conditions. Because I am a contracted employee with the local plants, it is sort of quasi-legal, but probably not really. bcbs has just been either nice about it, or not very careful about inspecting. Either way, if you don't have serious health issues then you just have no idea what a burden it can be to wonder how you are going to go about procuring products and services that quite literally can mean the difference between life and death for you, and will definitely mean the difference between having quality of life or not. And you don't know what its like to wonder whether or not you will be able to obtain for those goods and services. And how expensive they will be. And what your monthly copays will be like. And what else you may have to do without, and force your family to do without just to pay for them. To think that there are individuals and companies who purposely mislead consumers, whether those consumers be sophisticated, or neophytes - well, it just makes me nauseous. In fact, I think that the fewer skills and resources the consumer targeted has, the worse the offense in cases like these. The funny thing is that at the moment I have my resume up on a few job sites - for outside sales positions. I'm attempting to switch industries. So I am having to weed the UAI's and Crescent's of the world out of my inbox on a daily, if not an hourly, basis. Oh, the irony!

When you filled out your application and signed the forms associated with it, you signed a consumer form yes? Of course you did because we will NOT underwrite ANY application without that consumer form. The consumer form has about 10-15 statements that you are to read or skim over and initial and then sign. One of those statements you signed state that you understand this is not major medical and will not pay all of your claims and that it is a limited benefit policy. When you receive your policy the very first line in big letters says "Limited Benefit Policy". You also receive something called Policy Provisions in which tells you that you have a 30 day look period. In that time you are able to contact your agent, read your policy thoroughly, and call customer service. The job of the people in customer service is to assist you with any questions or concerns that you have. I know for a fact that our customer service department is highly monitored and extremely helpful. They will go through each page of the policy with you if you wanted them to. They will not lie to you and they will not beat around the bush. During this look period if you decide it is not the policy you thought it would be (because lets face it agents will lie just like car salesmen) then you can call customer service or your agent and cancel the policy and receive a refund. A lesson in life, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do your research. United American, as with all of Torchmark, is a very good company. Some have given us a bad reputation because they did not do their research before or after they bought the policy. If you have a complaint regarding an agent PLEASE send a letter directly to the home office because WE NEED TO KNOW! We don't want bad agents out there giving us a bad name, we WILL do something about it.