After several hours of trying to reach a warm live body at any insurance company, I focused back on Unum to locate a claims handler for a client claim. We had questions. The claim had already been assigned to three claims handlers, one of which had a heavy foreign accent and had difficulty communicating.
Once I finally found myself speaking to the alleged claims handler I discovered that she “also worked for something called EEAMS-11”, or, at least I thought that’s what she said through a strong undistinguishable accent. She did say she was the claims handler, which I thought was a step in the right direction.
The issue I was calling about involved a signed Unum Authorization that had been previously sent to the claims handler in January. Apparently, (and I got this from the claims handler), she wasn’t allowed to send out the Authorization because it was supposed to come from the claimant. “OK”, I thought, “I’m usually savvy to Unum’s odd strategy tics, but this is the first time in 25 years I’ve ever heard of a Unum claims handler not allowed to provide a signed Authorization in order to obtain medical records.”
Upon further inquiry I think I heard the claims handler say she was a member of something called “EEAMS-11” Designated Team, and as my mind immediately landed on Area-51 and other hyphenated number secret organizations; I thought, “This is not OK.”
After 20 minutes I still did not have the answers to my questions and without regret I hung up. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the worst “cluster trucker” I’ve witnessed from Unum – ever. Believe it or not, insurance companies are required by law to provide claims review systems that are capable of reviewing claims in a timely and accurate manner.
When I write about insurance companies in chaos, I mean every word. They’ve obviously hired their business out off-shore somewhat, and/or have hired non-English speaking claims handlers without much training. From the insured’s perspective, it’s difficult to deal with people who are confused about the claims process, probably more than you are.
Nevertheless, we have to work with the system, not trample through a mess that’s not ours to fix. I am amazed though at how inefficient and negligent Unum really is.
