Disappearing Posts? Go Figure!
I came back to update my previous posts about my efforts to change carriers from my Medigap Plan F from AARP/UHC to another company, but the posts are nowhere to be found.
First question is, is AARP too afraid to let criticism appear?
To recap, for those who never saw it, I was replying to other posts (in my case) about using Maryland's new Birthday Rule to change carriers and/or plan levels. My DOB is Aug 10th, and my wife's is Aug 28th, which fell into the 30 period after mine, so we waited until then to attempt the switch. That turned out to be a mistake. More on that toward the end.
I made an appointment to talk to the S.H.I.P. people in my county to discuss the Birthday Rule. They had never had an issue with anyone using it, even if their AARP/UHC Medigap plan had started before 7/1/2023, which someone at AARP had said made me ineligible. Eventually I did get a correction and an apology from someone higher up at AARP.
After settling on a new carrier, we called them and got it set up. There were some delays in getting it set up with the new carrier, which resulted in the approval (without requiring underwriting, by the way) by the new carrier not coming through until 9/5/2024. I couldn't inform AARP/UHC that I was discontinuing their plan until that time. Unfortunately, our premiums were always automatically withdrawn on the 5th of each month. The person I talked to at "AARP", promised me that the payment would be stopped. I don't fault her for being wrong, since she, and the person I also talked to later to complain when it was taken out of our bank account were obviously not living here in the USA. This is the AMERICAN Association of Retired Persons, isn't it? The second person also made a promise that it would get straightened out in 5 days. She didn't say it was working days, but I'll wait until 7 days elapse before I call again, since there is a weekend in that 5 day period. In the meantime the new carrier has taken their (much smaller) premium out of our bank account as well.
If I had made the change for myself first around the 10th of August, the amount in limbo would have been less than half of what it is. That was the mistake I was referring to earlier.