How To File A Complaint Against Your Insurer
After our post yesterday ended up crashing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' consumer information website, we received an email from them. They said they wanted to explain how the site works to address some reader questions, as well as point out that you too can contribute to the rankings by filing complaints when your insurer does something objectionable.
Hello Consumerist,
Your post has created a great deal of traffic on our Consumer Information Site (CIS) and unfortunately the demand generated seems to have crashed our system, several times today. Please share our sincerest apologies to your readers and invite them to try again later if they are unable to get the data they seek.
In addition we can address some of the comments:
Extremely large or small complaint ratios can occur for a number of reasons, all very technical, all very boring. However, the CIS does include actual complaint counts along with reports on complaint codes which provide information about complaints by type. The CIS also provides financial and licensing information about the company, and allows users to check ratios for any state.
In addition: If you are an insurance consumer and have a complaint, please contact your state insurance department (www.naic.org/state_web_map.htm) and file it.
Complaints can also be filed through CIS (when the system is working). The complaint filing process provides important information to state regulators. They may be able to assist you directly and use the information to determine whether further market conduct examination is warranted.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) reminds all consumers to shop around and contact their state insurance departments to be sure that they are dealing with licensed carriers and producers.
For insurance tips and information we invite consumers to check out: insureUonline.org.
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"Find Out How Much Your Insurer Sucks"
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Comments:
Good of them to contact Consumerist. :)
@9900dude: Ha I was just thinking that. Between crashing company websites, being targeted by hackers and the hordes of PR people that jump through hoops after a story breaks, Consumerist is officially on the map.
This is great. I thought there was something wrong with my computer. Thanks NAIC for all the extra info!
@9900dude: If it were the Slashdot Effect, the site would have gone down...
And stayed down.
Consumerist Effect sounds too duplistic.
Let's come up with a more snazzy name for this.
The Popken effect sounds snazzy.
After all, Consumerist is his baby. :p
If only Angry Insurance Kitty could represent consumers at the town hall debates....
Wow, that cat looks like it's ready to bite someone's head off...
Haha I saw this coming and I was correct. Hopefully the site will be back up soon so I can check out my carriers in the next few days once the fervor has died down a bit.
I sure as heck wouldn't want to run into that cat in a dark alley ...
It's still down as of this morning. Wow.
Way to go everyone!
the picture made me lulz
My mom did this against her high-risk pool, Kentucky Access. They took $2400 instead of $1200 (they told her they couldn't cash her first check as it was "fraudulent", meaning she wrote it from her business account instead of personal account... she's self-employed, but whatever. Fairly predictably, they cashed both checks) and wouldn't refund any for weeks.
This week, they sent her a notice of cancellation before her payment was even due. The complaint seems to have done exactly fuck-all. Hopefully other people have more luck with filing complaints.
In the past, there's been the Slashdot effect, and then the Digg effect. Now, there's the Consumerist effect. :)