The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is a sort of crazy website that “claims” (pardon the pun) to provide consumers with “information” and actually has a heading called, “Consumer Information Source,” on its website. But you’ve got to wonder why there’s an absence of a state-by-state ranking of the worst health insurance companies based on the number and type of complaints received by State Insurance Departments for any given year.
It’s a not-so-curious omission that highlights the disconnect between how we get an informed public from government employees whose own agendas obviously omit prioritizing the public that supports their public employee salaries and benefits packages, the citizens whom they serve.
After all, State Insurance Departments are in the unique position of merely having to sort through and categorize the complaints they receive. They already HAVE THE DATA.
We consumers know and accept the responsibility for submitting our complaints about health insurers to the State Insurance Commissioner and/or the insurance department, all we’re asking is that they sort through the complaints and spit it back out to us in aggregate for specific health insurance companies operating in their states.
Kind of makes you wonder why with all the “reporting,” that insurance department public employees are unwilling to provide that basic information to consumers, 10 WORST HEALTH INSURERS IN OUR STATE DURING YEAR ____ BASED ON COMPLAINTS RECEIVED.
NAIC is filled with clunky and time-consuming blah, blah, blah information that gives the “appearance” of transparency without actually being transparent. There’s a feeble tool that allows you to click through trying to find a particular life/accident/health insurance company and continue to click to try to find out how many complaints were filed against the company and continue to click to see if you can find any more details, but the site is a testimony to the disconnect between government and the people it represents.
The mere heading, LIFE/ACCIDENT/HEALTH shows the low priority given to consumer concerns. Obviously, these are separate categories even if a single insurance company peddles all three types of insurance. With a little bit of attention and a willingness to step out of their government employee protective shell, the NAIC could provide meaningful information to consumers.
So, how do you find out the 10 WORST HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES? You really can’t.
It should be noted that NY State has a great document produced by Governor Cuomo, http://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumer/health/cg_health_2013.pdf, called, “New York Consumer Guide to Health Insurance Companies.” Note, the Governor's Office produces the report. This report ranks health insurers based on clearly labeled criteria, giving consumers a LIST of how specific companies ranked AND the data is NOT stale, meaning it's reporting information older than the prior year, so in 2014, the data is 2013.
There are other states that have similarly titled “Guides,” that are nothing more than a dictionary of insurance terms or directions for filing a complaint. I haven’t found another easy-to-use ranking of the WORST HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES in a state based on number of complaints received in a particular year.
The Internet is not useful in determining a ranking of the worst health insurance companies but is useful in terms of noticing things to look for when you are selecting a policy.
The major barrier to Internet ranking is that logically, individuals going through a particular experience consider their company the WORST, making ranking difficult. But in terms of identifying policy loopholes, these postings can be helpful.
For instance, United Health, was voted the worst by “Healthcare-now,” for 2013 for paying their CEO $49 million in 2012, and for essentially “denying coverage,” by making patients jump through hoops for approvals and by denying coverage,” http://www.healthcare-now.org/the-worst-health-insurance-company-of-2013. The ranking also includes other insurers such as Humana for charging women more (which the PPACA will outlaw) and Anthem Blue Cross for premium increases (which the PPACA will make worse going forward). But the article uses information from 2012, so for an article published in 2014 claiming to rank insurers for 2013, the data is a bit stale.
You can try to assess insurance companies using sites like ConsumerAffairs.com which has a health insurance complaint section. Check the dates on the complaints you read but they’re useful because they represent actual experiences by complainants.
