Am I wrong to be angry?

[Dave020]

Nationwide is price-competitive here in California, actually they were lowballing rates a couple of years ago, esp. on small group and got burned and burned a lot of agents (as did Health Net about 4 years ago).

My problem with them is this:

- ridiculously high complaint ration
- farm bureau annual fee (great for farmers, not engineers)
- they use CCN only for network services and CCN is woefully lacking in a realistic number of participating providers.

I would never buy it, thus I would never sell it.

Dave
www.davefluker.com

 

[Guest]

A friend of mine here in Sacramento CA works in a Nationawide office as an agent (and is on salary... which I thought was strange). She says her store hardly ever sells healthcare insurance. No one asks for it and Nationwide does not go out of its way to advertise it.


Al

 

[008]

I've been pitching Nationwide for almost 6 months now and I'm rather surprised at the complaint ratio... 6 times more than Mega!? Most of my Nationwide policies actually came from folks previously with Mega.

It's true that NW acts like they have no interest in health and most I speak to have never heard of NW Health. None have really complaint about the CalFarm membership fee after I explain that its mandatory... I just say its like $6-7 extra a month...

Regarding the CCN/FirstHealth, every one of my client's doctors are in-network except one. But again I really haven't been in the business for too long... The only real complaint I have w/NW is definitely their underwriting. I've already had 10 apps declined, probably 11 by end of this week. Some were declined for what seemingly would be approved by most other carriers.

NW's plans just seem so much easier to understand to most people and their prices and deductibles are always competitive in CA. Their Choice Saver HSA's are easy enough to sell and the Lifestyle plans don't sound bad to me either. I was actually interested in a Lifestyle plan until I myself was declined. And that's when I understood how Nationwide really works... I'm 34, non-smoke, height/weight proportional, healthy, exercise/hockey twice a week and declined due to some one-time incident. Ever since then I only mention NW to healthy/young applicants after pre-qual, otherwise I pitch BCBS, and if all fails, I try Assurant...

I'm really surprised about the complaint ratio, and here I 'm telling peeps how good their plans are. What are their common complaints and why so many!?

 

[Dave020]

Something definitely went wrong with Nationwide in 2006. The 2004 and 2005 ratios were in the 1.40 - 1.92 area which is a bit high but within the normal range. 2006 individual & family complaint ratio skyrocketed up to almost 30.00 or a 30x increase. 91% of the complaints were from insureds and the remaining 9% were from "other" whatever other constitutes.

The actual complain details are not provided by NAIC, only the number and ratio of complaints.

CCN started having problems in the Santa Clara/San Benito/Monterey county areas about six years ago when it was still CalFarm insurance. Doctors were dropping out left and right and no one could get in network providers anymore.

Dave
www.davefluker.com