BCBS's "Use it and Lose it" Policy
July 6, 2007
Calif. agency says Blue Cross acts unfair
Blue Cross Life & Health revoked 1,880 individual health insurance policies in California in 2004 and 2005, and a state agency that examined a sampling says it found more than half of the cancellations were improperly handled.The Department of Insurance says it studied 83 sample cases and issued citations in 49 of them, alleging 67 violations of fair-claims handling laws.
The report was posted on the department’s Web site last week with little fanfare.A department spokesman said the agency was looking at rescissions industrywide.
Asked to comment on the report, a spokeswoman for Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., which owns Blue Cross, noted that the majority of the citations were for “technical violations of the claims-handling processes” and that “in nearly every case, the DOI concluded that the rescission was appropriate.”
