RESEARCH IS VITAL IN ORDER TO AVOID BOGUS HEALTH INSURANCE POLICIES WHICH ARE ON THE RISE

RESEARCH IS VITAL IN ORDER TO AVOID BOGUS HEALTH INSURANCE POLICIES WHICH ARE ON THE RISE

You know the story by now: your email, letter box and phone are polluted with messages offering health insurance at rock bottom prices. Those with common sense are wary of these offers and have reason to be. Florida’s financial regulators and health insurance industry experts say that these policies are nigh on worthless. As people are always actively searching for better health insurance rates, the level of fake policies is rising with false health coverage the quickest growing scam in the United States according to a recent survey by non-profit group, Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.

Morally bankrupt insurers and telemarketers zoom in on the millions of Americans who have either recently lost their coverage due to being laid off or sick, had it cut by employers or couldn’t afford the escalating rates charged by their insurance company. This has led to an enormous amount of anxious people looking for health cover and willing to go down any avenue. This makes them perfect targets for shady salespeople and their vague pitches promising affordable health insurance.

Over the last 12 months, regulators in Florida have found and shut down nine different operations that sold false policies to thousands of Florida residents. These policies were also marketed across the US and offered nothing in the way of actual

coverage, were not approved and were sold by agents and firms that were illegally set up in the state of Florida.

Recently, AIM and its subsidiaries sold 1,800 policies in the state before being shut down. The state is working hard to ensure that all health insurance policies meet basic minimum standards and it was found that none of the policies of AIM and the other companies were approved and the organizations were not licensed. Officials in Florida are attempting to force AIM and the others to pay up what they owe to those who purchased their policies.

Three other nationwide operations were also shut down, this time by the Federal Trade Commission who filed federal lawsuits because they identified the firms as sellers of health insurance policies that were worthless plus the fact that they used mass marketing in an attempt to dupe unsuspecting citizens. One of these groups, the Consumer Health Benefits Association, operated from Coconut Creek and made $15 million over a two year period as well as selling over 40,000 policies in the last seven years.

The bottom line is that none of these policies offer real health insurance. They don’t cover you in the same way and worst of all, victims of these scams don’t realize until they try to use them, only to find that a large medical bill awaits them instead. Officials are trying to make the public more aware by asking them to check with the state to ensure that the agents and insurers involved in selling the policies are genuine and licensed but of course there are no guarantees.

You may end up getting one of these policies that only actually covers a token amount like $40 on a doctor’s visit or a few hundred dollars towards hospital bills which can run into thousands. Then you have the pointless discount plans. These could be useful if you knew what you were buying but most people don’t. Instead they think they are getting a legitimate health insurance package. Many of these discount plans deliver nothing like you expected because these discounts are either non-existent or else they are so small that they don’t even cover the monthly fee for membership.