There seems to be much wisdom in recognizing the things in life that we are not good at and that we should seek help in those actions or activities. The problem I have seen over the course of my career is continuing to do an action or activity that we were once good at but now our abilities require some good old fashioned help. The point I want to stress this week is how look for signs that you may have reached a time in life when you need to ask someone to take over a task that may have once seemed quite easy. I will give you two examples from my world in Insurance that can help your family become aware that it is time to pass the baton to them to handle a few things for you.

The first activity that can become overwhelming to us is simply keeping up with what medical related policies that are currently active and inforce. It just seems to be a part of life now that quite often we have to change medical insurance companies. Many times we are forced to change companies when our former employer, where we retired, decides to switch insurance companies. There can be a number of reasons that necessitate a change in insurance companies if you have to purchase individual medical coverage because you or your spouse did not work for an employer that allowed you to continue your coverage with them. So here is a sign to look for that becomes a problem for folks. Do you right now have MULTIPLE Medical Insurance ID Cards in your wallet or purse? I’ll wait while you go check. Ok. Do you know which ID cards are the current ones and which ones are old and should be shredded? I get a call quite often that a claim has not been paid by a Medicare Plan that I have sold for a client only to find out the billing department from the medical provider billed an old policy that is not active. The scary thing is there is a time limit to submit a claim to an insurance company after your date of treatment and if I or a family member doesn’t find the problem soon, it may become too late to re-file the claim and have it paid.

The last example I want you to be looking for is simply your current ability to deal with insurance companies. In efforts to maintain profitability, many companies may have customer service folks that have not been with the insurance company long. Trying to get resolution for a policy issue can be harder than ever when the person on the other end of the line has to keep putting you on hold to ask their supervisor what to do. Are you currently able to call a company about billing errors, request address changes or duplicate ID Cards, or inquire about a claim that has been denied? Your son or daughter can’t just call the insurance company anymore to step in and try to fix things for you. The privacy laws we have now require either legal documents or at least your verbal consent to add a person to your file that you give permission to discuss your policy provisions.

There is no shame in asking for help. 

Jack Bradley Agency, Inc.

706-778-2136

Jack Bradley Agency "Insuring the Important Things in Life.