STAY AWAY FROM UHC. They are incompetent. We applied to them and it took about a month. It was a nightmare. We both felt like we had been raped. We ended up going with BCBS who approved us for the quoted rate in less than a week and have been very easy to work with. They also ask for a lot less history. Among other things UHC did:
- They called repeatedly asking the same questions.
- THey put a rider on the policy that they wouldn't cover anything to do with our GI/intestines because we each had one polyp removed during a colonoscopy. With this rider they still upped the rate by $125 a month and we don't take any medications, are healthy (correct weights, BP, etc.) with no chronic conditions. The UHC rep (not the my broker) told me almost NOBODY gets the quoted rate.
- They sent letters to the WRONG address, including a copy of our insurance form, which included 10 years of health history. Luckily, we did not have our SS# on the application (you do not need to give it to file for private health insurance even though they asked for it) and the address they sent it to doesn't exist. THe post office said they would have just sent it back to the sender. We never got any confirmation from UHC that they had it back. Just a letter of apology for their incompetence.
-THey charged our credit card before approving us and then when we declined their offer they wouldn't just give us a credit. We had to pay the cc bill and they issued us a check (which we did get in a timely fashion).
-You have to give them access to deduct the premiums from your banking account or you pay a large fee to be billed. There are no other ways of payment.
- When they bought GOlden Rule they dropped all the individual policy holders and said "good luck". My hairdresser had 60 days to find new insurance.
We see this as a blessing that we found out BEFORE we actually had the insurance. If it's this hard to give them our money, how hard would it have been to get a claim paid?
I am seriously thinking of filing a complaint with our state insurance commission.