Finally! an insurance rant

Ok, a little background. A few months ago I switched jobs. Because of the change I had to undergo a waiting period to become eligible for the new benefit package my new employer offers. That should have occurred at the beginning of last month. Naturally I hit a snag.

The first problem reared its frustrating little head when I found it impossible to log into the supplied website as it kept asking for a password I had yet to possess. When I went through the process on-line to ask for a password, I'd get a message that one would be emailed to my work email account. That of course never happened. So then I tried several times to contact a representative through their toll free hot-line. If one is looking for a sure fire way to get me to nearly lose my temper, or to put me in a really bad mood, then calling that hot-line is the way to go.

First, you get an sweet, throaty sounding automated voice asking for some basic information, then you get the "please enter your password" Well, the entire reason I'm calling this number is THAT I HAVE NO PASSWORD. There is no option other then, "use your keypad to enter your password, say I need help with this option, or I don't know my password" Of course I couldn't do the first one, the help choice was a "how to use your phone as a keypad" tutorial, and the I don't know choice said, "we will email you a new password". That's it. No, please press zero for assistance. Believe me I tried pressing zero several times. All that got me was a repeat of the password options. About that time, I strongly consider using the phone to bash in my own head with.

Finally, I hit upon the idea of not doing anything and seeing what happens. Lo and behold after about five minutes, the automated voice, says "I'm sorry, I cannot understand, let me transfer you to a representative." SUCCESS! Or so I think.

I get the person on the phone, let them know of my password problem. and ask, when should I be getting information on signing up for my benefits. "Oh, I'm emailing you your password right now." The answers on my benefits ranged from "you are eligible now, you are only eligible for part-time benefits, to you won't be eligible till next month." Yes, by now I have realized that head with the phone is not helping, I'm now banging it on my desk.

Of course the password NEVER hits my inbox. I repeated this process four times over a several week period. Finally yesterday I found a rep. who knew how to help my password problem. We bypassed the whole "we'll email your password to anyone but you" scenario, and just did it over the phone. And then today, I confirmed what I knew all along, I should be getting benefits. In fact I've been eligible for a month!

Now if only they can snail mail my my sign up package to the address they keep asking me to repeat every time they talk to me. Hey! A girl can dream can't she?