An Open Letter to Allstate Workplace Division

Dear Epic Fail,

Dude, as an insurer, your company sucks.  Of course that's just my opinion, but let's run through why.

First of all, your website provides the the opposite of helpful information. See below:

Second, you routinely received my self-submitted claims (I had to do all the work!  It should have been easy for you!) and did nothing with them for periods of months.  Your website itself makes the astounding claim that not only do you "care about [me] and [my] family and are committed to providing prompt, accurate and courteous claim processing services," but that "claims will be processed in less than 10 business days if all claim forms are completed accurately and no additional information is required."  You have never indicated that my forms are inaccurate nor that you need additional information.  So how come it's been two months?  And how come when I call to force the issue, your employee tells me my forms were received just fine, but they just haven't been processed.  Like this happens all the time.  BECAUSE IT DOES.  If I billed you my standard hourly rate for all the time I've had to spend tracking down unprocessed claims, you'd owe me approximately $203,394.00. 

Third, it took you months to issue a completely inane denial of one of my claims.  I still don't understand why you wouldn't jump up and down for the opportunity to cover preventative care, but whatever.  When I appealed because I am that person, you sat on my appeal form for FOUR MONTHS.  Even then, I had to call to get it "re-sent" to your review board.  You reversed your denial, which I appreciate - I really do - but do you understand that I had to pay my doctor's office for those fees almost a year prior?  You got to earn interest for quite a while on those unpaid fees, while I was out that money entirely.  Not cool.  

Finally, your employees could not BE more unhelpful.  Every call is clearly an inconvenience.  I've tried explaining that I don't want to be calling.  I just want my insurance company to process my claims.  Unfortunately, your employees tell me there's nothing they can do.  Sometimes these things just happen, they explain. 

You know what I think?  I think you're banking your business on wearing us down.  If you make us submit claims ourselves, you can eliminate X claims because some people won't go through the trouble.  Then if you just don't process them, you'll eliminate another X claims when your insureds don't make an effort to track down the status.  You're playing the numbers.  Except that promptly processing the claims as you've publicly promised you would isn't some kind of marketing flash, it's not a rebate, it's not an incentive to buy.  It's the minimum.  And you're failing.  

Cordially,

S