I received a call from a woman who said she was responding to my internet inquiry about health insurance. I had done some searches for health insurance, but I didn't remember whcih companie and she did not identify who she was with.
She proceeded to tell me about a plan that I could get which sounded very appealing. She said it included coverage for doctor visits, hospital, dental, vision, and prescriptions. She said there was no medical prequalification needed and no exclusions for pre-existing conditions.
She said it was a PPO and I could use any docter I wanted. She said my co-pay for a doctor's visit would be based on 10%of the bill, and gave me an example that if the doctor charged $60.00 then I would pay $6.00. She quoted deductible and limits for Hospital stays, ER and tests, which all sounded very reasonable.
She quoted a price of $200.00 per month with an initial start-up of $300.00. She also told me there was no contract, that it was a month to month deal and I could cancel at any time, with no further obligation.
She asked if this was less than I was paying for my COBRA now, which it is. So she apparently already had that information about me. She also had my home address and my date of birth.
I told her it sounded interesting and she said that to get started she needed to get my billing information. She then asked me for either my checking account information or my credit card number.
This is where I began to get suspicious and told her I didn't want to give that information until I received some paperwork about their plan. I requested that she either mail me some policy information, or e-mail it in an attachment to me. She said no, that's not the way they do it. She then said I had nothing to worry about because after she took my information she would put another person on the phone to verify it.
I found that to be almost laughable, because of course that does nothing to protect me, it only helps them. I said as much, and she then went into a description of how long the company has been in business (since 1972 supposedly) and the millions of people they have on their roles. After much prompting from me and hesitation on her part, she finally told me the name of the company was Family Security Council.
I was in the car on my cell phone at the time and I told her I'd have to think about it and asked for their telephone number. I then came home and looked it up on the internet. That's when I discovered all the complaints filed on this site. Most of the people describe very similar experiences with this company. The telephone number is the same but apparently they operate under both Family Security Council and Adova Health. When I called the number she gave me (888-328-2551) they answer the phone saying "Health Companies". (How non-descript!)
I am very glad I did not give her my credit card number, but I think it is terrible that they continue to rip people off this way. It's great that people are able to report about it in this venue, but I am wondering if there is some better way to stop them from preying on people in this manner.
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