Just a rant

[fodigger]

I received a call from my insurance agent today that the restaurant part of our operation is being dropped from our liability coverage, because we no longer fit their risk catagories. We have been w/ them at several locations over the last 10 yrs. we have never made a claim and asways made our payments on time. I'm so mad right now. I have at least 10 items that could stand for more of my attention right now and I have to bother w/ this stuff. I hope that by the time I'm done writting letters that they will now longer do business of any kind in CA. So not only will they lose our restaurant business but I will pull all of our business from them. Lets see if they like losing $200,000.00 a yr in business.

[Suzanne]

You are not alone!!

I just finished a fight with Dun & Bradstreet's collection agency because I never paid for a policy that I was told in November would not be renewed (we are 3 blocks from where the World Trade Center used to be; so our consulting business is now high-risk?). Now, if you received a letter stating that your policy would not be renewed, you'd say "okay, I'll get a policy from another carrier," right? Which we did. But then the original carrier DID renew the policy for the 1-and-a-half period until the new one kicked in, charging us about 75% of the old annual cost. Only they didn't tell us they had done that until AFTER that policy expired. So we were supposed to pay close to $800 after the fact for insurance we didn't even know we had?? I don't think so! The collection agency kept insisting that we owed, I kept insisting that we didn't -- finally I just gave it all to our agent to have HER clear it up. IT'S THE AGENT'S JOB TO FIND YOU COVERAGE.

Perhaps insurance is one industry that thinks it can "cash in" on the events of 9/11. We can't let it.

[fodigger]

If only I could have the agent do everything. While she will find and line up the companies we still have to do the paper work. I feel for you. How does it feel to be high risk? They say it has nothing to do w/ 9/11 per say but an overall reassesment of their business profit/risk ratio. I guess food is high risk although they certainly made their profit from us.

[Leo R.]

Suzanne & fodigger,these companies are just manipulative and self-centred!They are like organised crime syndicates,they don`t care who they tread on,it`s the profits that count!
What do i know?I`m a cynic
They try to justify their actions by claiming that some peoples policies aren`t viable! Here in Britain we have a Saxon expletive for that,a rough interpretation would be nonsense!!!!!!!
Good luck,Leo.

[kokopuffs]

Having been a chiropractor who practised in California, that state seems pre-eminent for insurance scams. So many unsuspecting insurance carries have been scammed by teams of doctors (in all areas of health care), lawyers and lay persons posing as accident victims, that it's difficult to stay afloat in that state without charging exorbitant premiums to their clients.

[alexia]

Leo, Saxons have lots of great expletives, but I'm curious if they have a better insurance system than the US? (intended as a serious, not sarcastic, question)

It would be interesting to hear from those in other countries as well.

[pattycake]

Insurance companies, bah. The bakery I worked at had health insurance thru a nationally known company..I was diagnosed with, then subsequently treated for, cancer. The minute I reached my 100 percent coverage level, our entire company was cancelled, and none of us was notified, until our claims started bouncing back to us. not only did the insurance company not tell us we were no longer covered, they didn't give us any cobra type options. I fought it through the state insurance department, and it was a huge lengthy hassle..but in the end, the insurance company paid up, then ended up leaving the state entirely.

it took nearly 2 years.

[Isa]

Healthcare is covered by the government. Same thing for everyone? It's suppose to be but if you know people or have money to pay for tests you can have it done privatly.

How are the doctors? Some are good other aren't worth the paper there diploma is printed on. Think of it this way: How do you call the guy who finish last in med school? Doctor....

[phatch]

Consider this:

The only known case of successful biological attack in the history of the US was in a salad bar at a restaurant.

I'm going to spell things wrong here because I have no idea how they're spelled and they're not words that are in the dictionary.

The Bagvan Rajneesh in Oregon decided he wanted to run for local office. Or perhaps it was a puppet lackey. Anyway, they didn't have enough followers to swing the election.

So they decided to cheat. They decided food poisoning was the way to go. As a test, they tainted a restaurant salad bar with salmonella. They got caught afterwards, but they sickened plenty of people even before they were ready to take over the election.


Restaurants are great terrorist targets. Really.

Phil