Long time ago, I had a run-in with an insurance company. It was after my first trip back home from the US. During my four years in the sanitized and relatively virus-free conditions of upstate New York, my natural third-world immunity had deteriorated significantly, and I came back from India with a bad respiratory infection, which had stopped responding to the antibiotics my doctor uncle had prescribed me. So I went to the emergency room at the Tompkins County Hospital in Ithaca, where they determined that I had pneumonia. The medical bill came up to over $450, and had multiple parts to it, like the X-Ray, radiologist’s fees, physician’s fees, ER fee, pharmacy etc. For payment, I handed them my student insurance card and went home.

A couple of weeks later, the hospital called me to tell me that the insurance had refused to pay one out of the many bills and that I still owed them about $80. I found it weird and ask them to try again, and went back to my PhD and whatnot. Then the insurance company told me that they were refusing because the procedure was not “pre-approved.” Weirder — how could one part of the same ER visit have different reimbursement criteria? Anyway, I proceeded to ignore the bill, which soon got handed over to some collection agency who started making harassing calls to me.

The whole thing went on for a few months before I decided enough was enough. Luckily, my university had a free legal service. So I went and met Mike Matterson (or some such name) at the legal office. He listened to my plight sympathetically, and advised me that it was pointless fighting some small battles in which you would lose even if you won. But he called the insurance company and proceeded thus, “Hello, this is Mike Matterson, attorney at law, calling on behalf of Manoj Thulasidas. I would like to make a few enquiries.” True, he had to rehearse my name a few times, but he made the whole opening salvo sound impressive. At least, I was impressed with this courtroom drama unfolding before my very eyes. But nothing really happened and I went back to my Danby Road apartment determined to stretch the payment a few more weeks if possible.

But four days later, I get this letter from the insurance company stating that they had decided to pay the bill in full — pre-approved or not. I realized that a call from a lawyer meant something to the company. It meant trouble, and they didn’t want to fight a small battle either. I wondered if this was a standard practice on their part — refusing a legitimate reimbursement if the amount is too small for the policy holder to wage a legal war.

Another incident taught me that it might well be. A family friend of ours passed away a few years ago. His widow knew that he, being the prudent and caring soul he was, had some life insurance policies, but could not find the papers. So she called the two major insurance companies here and made inquiries using his national identification number. Both companies expressed their condolences to the widow, but regretted that the late husband had no policy with them. Never heard of him, in fact. A few days later, while going through his papers, she found the policies with the same two companies. She called again, and the reply was, “Oh yeah, of course. Sorry, it was an oversight.” If it was just one company, it might have been an oversight. Is it again part of the corporate policy to discourage policy payouts if at all possible? Uninsured until proven otherwise?

If you have had similar experiences with insurance companies, why not leave your story as a comment below?