Insurance companies are the scourge of the universe when it comes to paying out valid claims.

My wife was on disability, waiting for a lung transplant (rare autoimmune disorder), and paid her premiums 2 months in advance, by certified mail, on the recommendation of her transplant office coordinator.

When she did get the page to go in for surgery, the doctors were doing all the last minute verifications.. Her insurance company TOLD THE HOSPITAL SHE WAS NOT COVERED FOR THE PROCEDURE, despite her mom having a folder with her policy, the signed and notarized pre-authorization letter, and every receipt, canceled check, and certified mail voucher with signature on it.

Her mother put the insurance rep on speakerphone, started a tape recorder, and asked them to repeat everything they said, after telling the rep that they were being recorded, and making reference to the folder.

There was a lot of "uhhhhh shuffle shuffle chair moving shuffle paper uhhhh" then "Oh, here it is, right here, looks like we had a simple misunderstanding, computer problems, blah blah etc"

Sickening.

Corpse f*ckers. The lot of them.

2wolves: Corpse f*ckers. The lot of them.

It's true, they fark corpses.

upon hearing the news, joplin survivor was heard to exclaim "lord imma buy me a mercedes benz"

I guess there is such a thing as bad publicity.

fsbilly: thomps: upon hearing the news, joplin survivor was heard to exclaim "lord imma buy me a mercedes benz"

Nice...

Stories like this really make me concerned for all these helpless insurance companies. Imagine, if there was universal healthcare, this poor insurance company wouldn't be in this pickle.

your insinuation has frightened the insurance companies, now they have no choice but to raise rates. you should probably stop criticizing them or they'll be forced to raise them again.

Sticky Hands: MorrisBird: 2wolves: Corpse f*ckers. The lot of them.

It's true, they fark corpses.

that's horrible and disgusting... I wonder if they film it?


Thats an absolute disgusting lie! They use a video camera

Yee haw! Publicity. Is there anything it can not do?

The company's argument seemed to be basically "You suffered nothing that people we did not insure did not suffer, so we're not paying."

You see, his problem was that he opted for your Basic No Pay Insurance Option. It's a good bargain as long as you never make a claim. But you get nada in the event of making a claim.

Too lazy to look up Monty Python Insurance Sketch and post it today. There will be other days when I do post it.

FTFA: He had placed three middle-aged men with Down syndrome beneath mattresses, then climbed atop one of the mattresses, to try and protect them.

The men died. Lindquist survived but ran up medical bills in excess of $2.5 million. He worked in a job paying barely above minimum wage and couldn't afford medical insurance.


I know everyone is going to automatically bash the insurance company but the three men died. Maybe the insurance company takes a stance against rewarding failure. Now if this guy was a real American he would have known enough to secure that mattress with his bootstraps. Besides, it's his own fault working at a job paying barely above minimum wage... or wait... is working minimum wage jobs now a real American thing... I can never keep this stuff straight.

It's workers' comp insurance. They pay the bare minimum and they're still denying this poor man coverage. As has been stated earlier, corpse farkers.

Ghastly: FTFA: He had placed three middle-aged men with Down syndrome beneath mattresses, then climbed atop one of the mattresses, to try and protect them.

The men died. Lindquist survived but ran up medical bills in excess of $2.5 million. He worked in a job paying barely above minimum wage and couldn't afford medical insurance.


I know everyone is going to automatically bash the insurance company but the three men died. Maybe the insurance company takes a stance against rewarding failure. Now if this guy was a real American he would have known enough to secure that mattress with his bootstraps. Besides, it's his own fault working at a job paying barely above minimum wage... or wait... is working minimum wage jobs now a real American thing... I can never keep this stuff straight.

If the three guys hadn't chosen to be mentally retarded, Lindquist wouldn't have needed to put himself in the position of working such a low-paying job to save them. They would have been able to save themselves, and he could have taken a higher paying job with better benefits and thus been able to afford better insurance when he was severely injured saving someone who really needed saving.

The Flexecutioner: "Upon further review, the insurance company agreed to cave to public outcry and bad publicity to appear to make good on his claim. They released a statement saying that additional information came to light and his claims became valid for legal reasons".

^^what the statement really meant.

"The Joplin survivor who defied odds of surviving a tornado while trying to save 3 adult mental patients has suffered numerous broken bones, loss of all teeth, and a 2 month coma while incurring $2.5 million in medical expenses. His claims for workers compensation were agreed to by his insurer, Accident Fund Insurance Company of America."

^^how the original article should have gone.

These awful insurance corps just do damage control and never own up to the large expenses without a ton of denials first. The only thing that makes me not lose TOTAL faith in humanity is the rarely successful use of the power of public shame. But I'll be honest, I pretty much have lost all of it. If the insurance company actually learns the error of their ways beyond the financial loss, I could agree that mankind isnt completely awful. That's a big mythical 'if' though.

See, the problem with this, is that we assume these kinds of claims never get approved. The only reason we know about this case is that it WASN'T approved.

Do you really think there would be a news article if his claim was approved from the get-go? Of course not. Even if there was an article about it, they probably wouldn't even mention the company by name, if they even mentioned he was covered by insurance at all. There could be hundreds of extraordinary cases like these, where the insurance company does the right thing, but we aren't going to know about those because they are not outrageous or otherwise newsworthy.

FTFA:
"Upon further review of the case, and receiving additional information on the facts involved in this situation, Accident Fund believes the appropriate decision is to honor Mr. Mark Lindquist's claim for worker's compensation benefits,"

IOW, they ran into a total shiatstorm from the public and the state workers comp officials had a nice "come to Jesus" talk with them about how their denial was in violation of multiple sections of the workers comp statutes. It probably ended with the state officials advising them that if they didn't reverse the denial the state would not only be investigating every gaaadam denial and questionable decision, assessing double penalties for each violation they find, but also barring them from ever doing business in the state for the rest of the decade.

Gyrfalcon: Ghastly: FTFA: He had placed three middle-aged men with Down syndrome beneath mattresses, then climbed atop one of the mattresses, to try and protect them.

The men died. Lindquist survived but ran up medical bills in excess of $2.5 million. He worked in a job paying barely above minimum wage and couldn't afford medical insurance.


I know everyone is going to automatically bash the insurance company but the three men died. Maybe the insurance company takes a stance against rewarding failure. Now if this guy was a real American he would have known enough to secure that mattress with his bootstraps. Besides, it's his own fault working at a job paying barely above minimum wage... or wait... is working minimum wage jobs now a real American thing... I can never keep this stuff straight.

If the three guys hadn't chosen to be mentally retarded, Lindquist wouldn't have needed to put himself in the position of working such a low-paying job to save them. They would have been able to save themselves, and he could have taken a higher paying job with better benefits and thus been able to afford better insurance when he was severely injured saving someone who really needed saving.

Oh my god! Do you mean there were defenceless billionaires that went unsaved from this tornado? How can the richest nation in the world sleep at night knowing such things are possible?

An insurance company's first flaw: They assume they are there to make money.
Their second flaw: The assume they always *will* make money.

/insurance should be generally non-profit
//can't live in the world without it, hence the "generally"

Would like a word:



Now

In other words the agency comptroller said, "I think we'll look for another Worker's Compensation insurance firm at the end of your contract" And the insurance company rolled over like the good little dog it is.

Good for this guy, sounds like he got a raw deal all around, and with lifelong injuries such as he has he'll at least be able to pay off the bills.