I’m sure you’ve gotten these as email or snail mail. “You are pre-approved. Just fill this out and we’ll send you a quote for the policy that is right for you.”
You are not pre-approved. No one will every pre-approve me for life insurance. There is too much wrong with me. If they do accept you (Garry was great, no problems worth dying for), they do not send you a quote.
If they figure you are not on death’s door, they sign you up for a policy. No quote. No prices for various amounts or types of policy or for that matter, an explanation of exactly what your policy includes. No paperwork at all.
You get an email telling you that you have a policy. This is immediately followed by a bill that will probably knock your socks off.
If this hadn’t happened to me previously with another company, I would have been more upset. I thought I could just tell them to turn it off because we had not applied for a policy. Nope. They had to hear it personally from Garry.
Garry is not currently taking phone calls for reasons I explained with due diligence. They explained he would then have to write them a letter. Which he isn’t going to do because he’s having trouble finding keys on the computer, so a letter — unless I wrote it myself — was a no-go. His disorientation is real, though it is getting better.
I pointed out that no one applied for a policy and he said he couldn’t discuss Garry’s application — which wasn’t an application and which I wrote. I said I didn’t need him to tell me what was on it since I’d filled it out and knew exactly what was on it. I asked them if it was legal to not offer a quote, but convert a request for a quote into a policy — and then start billing?
Silence.
I said “Well, since I’m the one who pays the bills, I’m not paying this. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal, too.”
“Well,” he said, “In 120 days the policy will lapse anyway if you don’t pay.”
“What else might happen?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing. At all.”
“So I can either get complicated trying to find a way for Garry to talk to you — kind of hard because he can’t hear — or I can make him write you a letter. Or I can do nothing and it will just go away all by itself.
I think I’ll go with option 3.”
My problem with this is simple. It’s wrong.
Globe Life Insurance targets the elderly who have trouble getting insurance because — you know, we’re old. They should cut it out. Targeting the elderly is uncool. I’m pretty sure it’s also illegal. I’m not yet confused enough to think that I applied for a policy when I know I didn’t.
But they generate a goodly amount of business from confused people who aren’t clear on what they did or didn’t do. Or what their spouse did or didn’t do.
It’s a pity I’m not a lawyer. I would love to take these scammers to court.
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Categories: Anecdote
YOUNG LIVES ON THE MOVE 
A TEXAS CHILI COOK-OFF 
BLOOMING RHODODENDRONS 
BIRDS ON THE MOVE 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
AHA! I’ve gotten THREE unwanted emails from another company telling me about “my” life insurance policy. Since I’m with a different company for that stuff (maybe. I suspect I’ve been dropped), and since I don’t want t deal with Globe Life or any of their ilk, I never open the $!#@ things and I do mark them as “spam”. Presumably Google then takes care of it. Or maybe they don’t, but at least being marked ‘spam’ all future correspondence goes in my virtual dust bin. Of course my bandits apparently generated a new address or link and got in again, but again I spammed them. They can go to hell. Which I’d yell at them, were they to contact me..not that they CAN, the land line is gone. My cell phone? I don’t hear it ringing about 3/4 of the time so most of the junk ends up in a trash bin again. Ha! Thanks for the heads up though! The more one knows…
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They also send this stuff snail mail, so just watch out. I asked for a quote and they decided to send a policy. But since they have no paperwork indicated an application for a policy, there’s nothing they can do. A lot of people don’t KNOW that.
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Such a scam! Put you through worry concern and hell, then say it’ll be cancelled anyway? I nearly applied for the one similar in Canada it’s 8.00 a month – sure glad I didn’t!
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This was $160/month — and that was just for GARRY, not me.
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I got the gist of it being for Garry and you filling it out but Yikes! that’s highway robbery!
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I recently considered applying for life insurance so that at least the mortgage would be paid off when I die (which of course is inevitable, but hopefully not too soon). No legitimate companies offer insurance specifically to pay off the mortgage at my age. One poor guy at my bank started off saying sure they offer it, and we began the application, then got to the current age question – at which point, he became quite embarrassed at having to tell me that I was beyond their age limit for this type of insurance. (Well, heck, obviously it’s likely that I will, in fact, die before the loan is paid off – it’s a 30-year-loan and I’m 66 and not in great health). The company I get my car insurance through was able to offer a full-life policy, but the rates were exorbitant. I can barely pay my monthly bills as it is. A few on-line companies seem to offer “life insurance” for people my age, but it usually turns out to be accidental death/dismemberment only. If I die of natural causes, there will be no payout.
So for now I just take whatever little cash I have at the end of the month and put it into a separate savings account. If I die while still owning my house, the house will pass to my husband (if he’s still alive), and he can then sell it, pay off the mortgage (or not and let the house go into foreclosure), and move in with one of the kids. Not the ideal situation, but it’s the best I can do.
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But these guys are basically offering terminal policies with more clauses about what they won’t pay than they will pay and they just give them out without so much as an estimate or a piece of paper. Of course, I refused to pay, but how many other confused elders think they are obligated and take what little money they have and spend in on a useless policy? I bet it isn’t legal. These days, I suppose who can tell if anything is illegal?
No one will insure ME, either … and these policies are effectively useless anyhow.
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It’s obviously a scam, but real insurance companies are not much different. Insurance typically covers everything but what happens.
Leslie
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Funny about that, isn’t it? I’ve noticed that too. We are lucky in that we have a pretty good insurance company and they have always done right by us … but I know a lot of people who have discovered that their insurance insures nothing. You pay, they collect, and tough luck with whatever else might happen.
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there’s a lot of tough luck to it, alright…..
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I am not a religious person, but I feel that if there isn’t a special (and terrible) place in Hell for people who scam the most vulnerable, there should be…
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..with no insurance.
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Nasty people. You get those who go round door to door too, offering to do some work, inflating the price and then demanding payment.
Last year the government offered discounts for people to get new loft insulation. Some joker turned up on my doorstep claiming to be working on this initiative. When quizzed he told me he’d forgotten his ID and couldn’t remember which government agency he was working for. He did want his mate (who was waiting in the van) to come in to check out my loft, though. He should have just turned up in a balaclava with a baseball bat. I might have let him in then.
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There are so many thieves of just about everything. The “home thieves” are common here, too. As soon as people begin to realize they’ve been cheated, they disappear and show up in another community. But these conglomerates who count on confused older people not knowing what they signed are really awful. In fact, you didn’t sign anything, you don’t have a contract, and if you ignore them, they go away. But a lot of people don’t know that. Shameful. And also sad.
It’s bad enough getting old, but to then become everyone’s target is disgusting.
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Luckily it doesn’t happen here. When I get the scamming telephone calls, usually they want to sell me a health insurance. I only have to mention my age and they say goodbye
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I suspect it is illegal here, too. But it’s a big country — and some pretty huge conglomerates running these scams. So unless someone takes them to court, they get away with it. There’s much to be said for a smaller, better-controlled population.
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I feel very sad when I read articles like this, Marilyn. The world is full of unscrupulous people.
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Un – friggin’ – believable…like so many things in our world today. They prey on the absent-minded, oblivious and stupid. Thankfully, Marilyn is none of these.
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