The Allen J. Flood Companies Inc.

Review: [redacted] Flood was providing health insurance policies to uninsured students through our son's college. Although I requested a waiver of insurance for our son as he was already covered by CIGNA insurance I was charged anyway for it. The only notice they ever gave me was to send an email which ended up in my spam box so that I never saw it. They never sent a piece of paper or made any real attempt to be sure I knew they were going to charge me. The charges were billed as part of university charges and I and my family had no idea that we had been forced to pay for a secondary insurance that we neither wanted nor needed. Although our family NEVER submitted a claim [redacted] Flood states they cannot reimburse the policy because it was used. Indeed it was used, once again without our knowledge. It was automatically used by the university's health center when our son went in for a service. We have kindly requested that the school simply give the claim back to [redacted] Flood and resubmit the claim to our primary insurance, so that [redacted] Flood can then refund us the cost of the policy that we didn't ask for, didn't want and didn't even know we had. Although this seems to be quite a rational and fair course of action [redacted] Flood has begun ignoring my communications and it seems I have no other recourse but to turn to you for assistance. I will also be contacting the Consumer Assistance Unit of the New York State Department of Financial Services and the Health Care Bureau of the New York State Office of the Attorney General as this appears to me to border on actual fraud.Desired Settlement: We have kindly requested that the school simply give the claim back to [redacted] Flood and resubmit the claim to our primary insurance, so that [redacted] Flood can then refund us the cost of the policy that we didn't ask for, didn't want and didn't even know we had.

Business

Response:

A complete written response and supporting documents were included in a letter to the Revdex.com on October *, 2013. This same information was also emailed to the Bureau on the same day.

Business

Response:

Dear Sir/Madam:

This is to acknoweldge receipt of your letter of September *, 2013 in connection with the above complaint. We would like to offer the following information:

1. The person filing the complaint is the father of a student who attended Bard College for the 2012-2013 school year.

2. The Allen J. Flood Companies, Inc., against whom the complaint was filed, is not an insurance company and does not provide health insurance; rather, it is an insurance agency that specializes in the marketing and administration of accident and sickness insurance

plans for student groups. A copy of the agency license is attached with this response.

3. For the 2012-2013 school year, Bard College applied for an insurance policy that provides Accident & Sickness insurance benefits for enrolled students of the College.

4. This College and many other colleges and universities apply for this type of insurance policy because the college is concerned about the health and financial well-being of its students.

5. The College maintains a procedure whereby all enrolled students of the College are automatically billed for the student accident and sickness insurance. Students can have the charge for the insurance removed from the bill if the student can demonstrate proof of other medical insurance.

6. The College alerts students and their families to the above insurance coverage and premium billing procedure by letter prior to the start of the school year. A copy of the letter is included with this correspondence. A brochure outlining the coverage and the school's procedures for billing this insurance is also included with this response.

7. This particular student and their family requested that the insurance charge be removed from their student bill; however, the request was denied because the coverage information provided

8. was not complete. Our office, on behalf of the College, requested additional information from the family.

9. The request for additional information was sent to the family by email on May **, 2012. The family did not receive the email but later discovered it had been delivered to the family's spam filter and never recovered.

10. The student sought treatment for a condition at the Bard College Student Health Center. The Health Center treats enrolled students but does not bill students for a majority of services. In the case of the treatment provided, certain services could not be handled by the Health

Center; therefore, the Health Center had to have some services handled by a medical provider not affiliated with the College. The services referred by the Health Center to the third party provider were billed against the student accident and sickness plan. A claim payment was made for these services.

11. On May **, 2013, the family contacted the College and asked why the insurance premium charge, which had been applied

to the tuition bill approximately 11 months earlier, had not been removed. The College contacted our office on that same day.

12. Our office advised the College that we had sent an email requesting information from the family one year earlier and had not received

a reply; therefore, the charge had remained on the family's bill.

13. Email correspondence continued between the College and the family until June *, 2013 when the College asked that our office contact the parent directly.

14. On June *, 2013 an employee of our office replied to the parent by answering his email point­ by-point.

15. On June *, the parent replied to our office response.

16. On June *, our office responded back to the parent with information including fact that the student had utilized the benefits under the plan and that because the plan had been utilized no refund could be considered.

17. On June ** the parent sent a request to our office for claims information.

18. On June **, we obtained the claim information and provided a reply to the parent.

19. On August **, 2013 the parent sent an email requesting a refund of premium. Upon receipt of this follow-up request, our office emailed the insurance company to determine if the insurance company would allow a refund of the premium.

The insurance company has reviewed the circumstances surrounding the above events and, despite the fact that the student utilized the plan, the company has granted our office authorization to refund the insurance premium to the family. A refund will be processed this week and sent to the parent no later than October *, 2013.

If the parent or your office require additional clarification regarding this matter, please contact me directly by one of the following means:

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me as they have agreed to refund the policy cost thus the matter has been resolved.

Thank you very much for your invaluable assistance.

Sincerely,