Near the end of last year, after being faced with rising insurance costs, I decided to do some comparisons between the policies offered to myself and the mister. As it turns out, both our respective employers offered insurance with the same major insurance company, which I never actually cared for, but that makes it an easy enough switch, right? (As for my impartiality to the insurance company, that happened years ago when they attempted to tell me that my pancreatitis was a pre-existing condition. That was before it became cool — and legal — to deny claims based on so-called pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately, in this case, I nearly died from my pancreas being a dick to me, so if it had been existing longer than what it did, I would not be alive to complain about it. This argument to the insurance rep led to an awkward silence and a soft “oh”. Nice try.) Now what should have been a relatively easy switch has been a complete and utter nightmare. It’s still causing problems six months later. First, there were the various doctors’ offices, who could not understand “This is a NEW policy.” EVERY TIME I went or took the kids to the doctor, I’d end up with a letter from the billing department stating that my old policy was invalid. OF COURSE IT IS, YOU TWITS! I’d call up the billing department and tell them “for the 100th time, this is NEW. Not a secondary. Shit, pretend the old policy doesn’t even exist!” I’d get the standard apology and an assurance that they’d “fix” the problem and resubmit the claim. The problem is, after this happened a good amount of times, the insurance company was getting a bit suspicious. They soon began sending letters as well, asking if anyone in the family was covered by another policy. This is quite an easy concept really. See, I even made a picture to demonstrate: For the life of me, I don’t understand why the insurance company is having a difficult time understanding this now. I feel like calling up and screaming “For Fuck, it’s the SAME company! Put it in your computer and figure it out!” I mean, c’mon now! I understand if I switched companies, but I didn’t! Same one! New policy! Simple, see??? If the insurance company doesn’t figure out this soon, I swear I will send them that picture. I sure hope this is the last time I have to switch policies within a company. I’ve never had this much trouble before, even switching from company to company.