I'm 49, not obese, in relatively good health. I'm a self-employed professional. I've had continuous health coverage my whole life. I passionately believe in insuring against potential catastrophic losses, as I have experienced a fire which destroyed my home (ohmygawd, is your first thought, I sure hope I paid the insurance premium). Settling the claim on that loss took over four years.
I don't carry insurance on anything I can afford to replace, which means I never buy the "extended warranty," my deductibles are high, and I don't carry collision insurance on my 10 year old car (the cost to replace it is equivalent to about 4 years of premiums, so the calculus says "self insure" for this one).
About 12 years ago, I obtained insurance in a small town in a western state.
Over the course of about five years, the premiums on this policy increased incrementally, and then as insurers moved out of the tiny market, the premiums started to increase 50% each year, until my initial payments had skyrocketed from an affordable $360 teaser rate to over $1600/month. I knew I needed new insurance, but a disk problem which had resolved with no medical intervention kept me from applying for new insurance. I had to wait until it dropped off the five year history before applying, because I knew that if I didn't do that, I would be denied, or the back problem would have turned into a pre-existing condition, and I one of the things I'm kind of attached to is my spine, and if something goes wrong with it, it's something I want my insurance to cover. It's a biggie. So I waited until it dropped off, and when it did, I shopped carefully for new insurance.
"OK" I said to each potential insurer "If I get insurance with your company, can you drop me if I get sick?"
"no, of course not" they said
"what if my head goes bad and my doctor tells me I need an entire head transplant? that will be covered? You guys won't decide 'hey, we'd better cancel this person's insurance'?"
"no, no, ha ha, head transplant" they said
"what determines how much my premiums will be raised by? If I need a head transplant, will you decide to raise my premiums to $50,000/month to basically make it impossible for me to keep up?"
"ha ha, no, no, that's all dependent solely on which pool you fall into based solely on your age" they said
But I didn't trust them, because I've had run-ins with insurance companies, and when they have teams of 126 lawyers writing devious, 184-page "welcome packages", and you have only your native intelligence, guess who loses? So I kept my old, outrageously expensive policy and my new policy for one year, concurrently, just in case. I cancelled the old policy exactly 18 days ago, and sighed in relief -- it was a huge amount to be paying every month, but as I said, being insured is important to me. So, six days ago, what happens? Well, in the last year, I had skin cancer. It's the good skin cancer, the kind that John McCain doesn't even count as skin cancer. That's because it doesn't metastisize, it just sits there looking like a zit until somebody notices and says "hey, better get that looked at, it's pearly pink". And then they take the biopsy and tell you it's the good skin cancer and you can get it off tomorrow, or in six months, there's no hurry. They cut it off, and you're cured, hurrah.
So eight days ago the anaesthesiologist who knocked me out called me with a peculiar message. The insurance company, which is Humana, was asking them for five years of medical records. Hmph, I thought, odd. So I called the number tha anaesthesiologist gave me, and I asked what was up.
"well, we have to go through all of your medical records for the past five years to make sure that this wasn't a pre-existing condition"
what then?
"well, we'll have the option of recission, re-evaluation of your premium amount, or a rider for this condition. it's up to our underwriting department, and don't worry, you can appeal"
what about all of the assurances I had received that, once accepted, my policy could not be cancelled?
"it's on page 1,234,567 of your welcome packet"
what about the fact that if I had been told this policy when I was shopping for insurance, I would not have purchased this insurance?
"you can appeal the decision of our underwriting department if you're not satisfied with the result of the process"
you don't seem to understand. I'm not concerned with what happens from now into the future, I'm concerned with happened from the past to now. I feel I was a victim of a bait and switch.
"I'm sorry, that's not my department"
...so now I'm up the creek. This process will take "30 - 60 days" after they receive whatever they deem to be "complete" medical records.
why didn't you perform this review when I applied for insurance?
"this review is triggered by certain conditions"
which you didn't tell me about when I was purchasing insurance; in fact the salesperson I spoke to assured me specifically and repeatedly that if my application was accepted and I passed the review, that my policy could not be cancelled?
"that is not my department, I'm sorry"
what if I decide not to grant you access to all of my personal private medical information?
"well, then we'll deny all your claims"
even the claims that are unrelated to basal skin cancer?
"yes, pending a full review of your records"
but I'll continue to pay my premiums?
"yes"