Two run-ins with big bureaucracies today…
Health insurance — because I did not submit an enrollment form exactly four months after I was hired, I must now wait until May to do it. This is moronic. I won’t say that they never told me that — it may well have been one of a zillion things I was told on my first day — but certainly no-one reminded me in July. And why can we only do this once a year anyway?
WWE — when WWE shopzone had their Thanksgiving sale, I ordered a bunch of stuff, and was pissed when one of the items was wrong. A particular shirt that had been on-sale that I liked for its style, rather than the wrestler it represented (Edge), was replaced by the guy’s newest shirt, which has a crappy design (a giant Ankh, basically).
I hate getting the wrong order in the mail — of course I had to send it back at my own expense. But today I called them, right after I confirmed they got it back.
The shirt I wanted had sold out, and I guess they had decided substituting a newer one for the same guy would be fine with me (especially since the newer one was not on sale). So the guy tells me he’ll credit my account for the shirt I didn’t get, and I can keep the other one.
I remind him I already sent it back, so he then tells me I can have any other T-shirt they carry. So I’ll soon be sporting the newest Stone Cold Steve Austin-wear instead. Yay for great customer service!
Not that I want to defend health insurance companies, in particular, but I did work in the field for quite some time.
If they let people join at any point, then no one would join until they were sick. They wouldn’t have all the prior months of premiums to pay the bill, and they would go under.
Insurance is a gambling game: they bet you won’t get sick, and you bet they’ll have the money to cover you when you do get sick. So if you want them to have money to pay your claims, they have to have enough enrollees who AREN’T making claims but who ARE paying premiums.
There are extenuating circumstances rules–if you were on COBRA from your prior job, then when that ran out you could enroll on their plan, but it has to be that same month. Otherwise, if you don’t enroll when you first become eligible (for most employers that’s at 90 days), then you have to wait for the plan’s annual Open Enrollment period, which sounds like May for you.
Sorry.
“If they let people join at any point, then no one would join until they were sick.”
That doesn’t quite wash — I suspect anyone joining when sick would be turned down for assistance on that particular sickness as having a pre-existing condition, no?
The 90 day window seems arbitrary — especially if you’re supposed to be counting the days yourself while doing everything else — and open enrollment only once a year needlessly punitive.