The "Group" which sponsered SO's group rate health insurance was a fraud
Retiring teachers from private schools were told they could be sponsored by a group called Wisconsin Retired Educators which would make them eligible for group rates with a major national health insurer.
Many of the retiring teachers did this. Last week across Wisconsin letters began arriving telling people that Wisconsin Retired Educators had dropped them and that they needed to get a new policy.
In four different places in the text of that computer generated denial of service letter, retirees were told to contact Wisconsin Retired Educators. They tried. There is NO such organization, but there -is- a Wisconsin Retired Educators -Association-. Wisconsin retirees called there. WREA, an authentic incorporated organization, hasn't a clue about the sham "Wisconsin Retired Educators" and doesn't sponsor insurance by that major national insurance company.
But, WREA says it has been getting scores of phone calls everyday since last week from unhappy retirees wanting to know, in terms only an angry teacher could us, just why they'd been dropped.
Calls to the major national insurance company to get contact information were unproductive except to reveal the major national insurance company's database suggests in a note that employees should not tell inquiring policy holders to contact (the sham) Wisconsin Retired Educators (which they had done 4 times in their policy dropping notices.
It seems the scheme was to get people into policies with this major national company under a false pretext of being enrolled in a sham group, and then creating a crisis with the group which the company could 'solve' by providing non-group insurance at a higher rate.
The SO has forwarded many pages of documents provided by the major national insurance company using the name of the sham organization, including enrollment application, the policy contract and the letter dropping her to Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection...
I'm currently wondering if this scheme is limited to one WI sales office or if it's widespread.
