If I could invent an insurance company manual that would be 101 things NOT to do at an insurance company, I think I might have all their training contracts.
Out of the blue, my brother-in-law receives this letter from John Hancock (see A discussion with John Hancock) stating that he has a bit of a long term disability benefit coming to him. He would have had a huge benefit, but back before he began to ask for help and my Mom and I realized he was going down the tubes fast, he would just let his mail pile up. This resulted in a Superfund clean up of his papers and mail when he was cut off from all disability payments. That’s when I ultimately found a myriad of uncashed checks, uncompleted forms for benefits, and lots of other important matters literally brushed under the table.
I plowed through everything and re-instated his disability benefits, paid all his bills, eventually got 7 years of back taxes completed and found something like $9,000 in unclaimed property from the state.
But I truly never saw any documents from John Hancock. So when this letter came saying that he lost his benefits for failure to pay his premiums seven years ago, I just had to take that one on the chin. It was “B.C.”–before Cathy.
Yet still there was a tiny stipend that was guaranteed by the company. All he had to do was apply.
I was finally allowed to apply once he came home from the hospital. I looked over the application and put it on my “to do” pile for the end of the week.
The next day I received another missive from John Hancock:
“We received your request to reinstate long term care insurance. Please fill out the following forms and we will process your request in a timely manner.”
The forms were 9 pages long, asking for medical information, employment information and if you had ever been disabled.
I was pretty certain that my brother-in-law who has had Multiple Sclerosis for over 15 years, has been wheelchair bound for almost 3 years, and has caregivers 4 times a day to bathe, dress and give him his meds, would not qualify for reinstatement of long term care INSURANCE.
Oh, if you only knew how tempted I was to fill out those forms and have someone spin their wheels on this absurd ‘request’.
But I did the right thing and called the 800 number on the letter:
“CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE WON A CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS! AND FOR CALLING TODAY, YOU WILL ALSO WIN THREE NIGHTS IN A RESORT OF YOUR CHOICE!”
I obviously misdialed, so I checked the number and dialed again very carefully:
“CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE WON A CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS! AND FOR CALLING TODAY, YOU WILL ALSO WIN THREE NIGHTS IN A RESORT OF YOUR CHOICE!”
So apparently with John Hancock, you win a prize for being disabled.
I scanned the nine page document to see if there was a different phone number and there it was. The real John Hancock began with 888 not 800 as in their cover letter. I pondered how many long term disabled people were on their way to the Bahamas just knowing their disability checks would be there when they got back.
You just have to Laugh…..
Cathy Sikorski
