I applied for an insurance policy in March through Golden Rule Insurance, a sub-company of United Healthcare. I was accepted in March and had my premium of $81.84 drafted monthly. I was in a car accident of November 26. While driving early on a foggy morning I must have fell asleep while driving or somthing, because the next thing I knew I was laying next to my burning car with first degree flash burns and a broken back. My memory is very blury of what happened because I struck a colvert, which ruptured my fuel tank and caused my car to explode and flip end-ways about 300 feet. I was not drunk or under the influence of any other substances in this crash, and this was stated in the police report by the Florida State Police.
Unfortunatly, for a brief period in Florida pip insurance was not required, and foolishly I did not get this to save money on insurance. Because of this Geico would not pay anything for my crash. I had to undergo a back operation in which my vertibraes L2-T12 were fused together. I am suffering from a spinal cord injury, and I have drop-foot on both my right and left legs. I stayed in the hospital for three weeks, and I was so glad that I had health insurance.
That was a short lived feeling however, because in April I received a letter from my insurance company saying that they were conducting an investigation about my driving and criminal history. I was not worried about it because I knew my crash did not involve any illegal activity. Unfortunatly, I was contacted about a DUI that I was charged with in February.in my insurance policy question 29 read as follows; In the last 5 years, has any aplicant had any indication, diagnosis, or treatment of an alcohol or drug dependency, problem, or abuse; or any alcohol - or drug-related arrest? I answered no here because after reading the first porion of the question, I assumed this was purely a question about drug dependency and counceling, which I had never attended.
This caught me as a complete surprise that the end of this queston asked about drug-alcohol arrests. I was not trying to hide anything because question #31 asked if I smoked. I answered yes, but if I was trying to lie I could have easily hid this. I made a simple human error that anyone could make. Because of this, my insurance company claimed that they would not have insured me knowing I had a DUI, so they cancelled me back to the beginning. This means they said that they would refund all my premiums and it would be like I never had insurance.
I beleive they had the right to cancel me when they discovered this in April, but only from then on. I made a simple error, and they could have ran my record from the beginning and noticed. They did not, they happily took my monthly premiums until I was badly injured. I also discovered that as of the date I was cancelled, they had paid out about $1,500, and denied about $30,000, so they were happy to return my $1,000 in premiums I had paid.
They discovered that it was going to cost them more than what I had paid them in my case. This is a great thing to drop on someone who is trying to recover from a spinal cord injury. I know I made a big mistake drinking and driving, and I have learned as many people have. I could also see their point if my crash involved drugs or alcohol, but it did not. I also beleive if this was such an important question that would influence my policy, why doesn't it read: HAS YOUR LICENCE EVER BEEN SUSPENDED OR REVOKED?
I certainly would not have missed that question. The main thing that infuriates me is that they could have noticed my mistake from the beginning, but they did not because they were happy to take my money until I was badly injured. This type of thiing is happening all over the country to people, and what makes me mad is that insurance companies love to take your money, but they will find a loophole when you need coverage.insurance companies pay people to find ways to screw the insured. Excuse me.
To this day of May 12, I still have not received my premiums check which was mailed on April 25 according to my insurance company. I don't plan on cashing the check, I plan to put it in the hands of a lawyer who may be able to help me. It is hard to get a lawyer however after you have been disabled in an accident, and can't work but I plan to find a way. There must be organizations that can help in a case like this.
I would like to end my complaint by warning you all, the consumers, not to be taken by an insurace company. Research the company you are going through, and make sure that this will not happen to you because it sucks. I beleive they would have found somthing else to cancel me over, if it was not this because they stalled on paying, until they found this reason. My heart goes out to people that have this happen to around the counry, especially the elderly.
0 comments