A guest post by Carole Newton McManus.

Among the dozens of unpleasant tasks a person has to deal with after the loss of a loved one, perhaps the most odious is dealing with insurance companies.

When my husband Jeffrey died in July, I was told by Blue Shield of California that they’d have to process a “split” of our family health insurance, changing the primary subscriber name from his to mine. This bureaucratic ordeal ended up taking two and a half months, two faxes and six phone calls to resolve.

Of all the very repetitive and scripted conversations I had with Blue Shield representatives, the most surreal began with “Do you know how you were related to Jeffrey McManus?” 

Most of the reps I talked to sounded very young and got a sort of panicked catch in their voices when I told them about my reason for calling. They didn’t seem to want to think about mortality, let alone talk about its aftermath.

Of the six phone calls, four of them ended with the representative promising to handle my case personally, and saying that they would call me when it was resolved. The number of phone calls I received? Zero. Along the way I also received letters from Blue Shield that in no way reflected what I had been told on the phone. The letters also contained threats that my healthcare coverage was about to be cancelled for non-payment of dues/premiums. To add insult to injury, I also received a letter addressed to my late husband, for whom Blue Shield had proof of death in the form of a death certificate, terminating his coverage, “because we did not receive payment of your dues/premiums within 30 days of the due date.”

I summoned up the energy to write a letter to Blue Shield of California CEO Paul Markovich. I carefully documented every conversation, giving names and dates. It took up four pages. I CC’ed the SVP of Customer Quality, the VP of Organizational Effectiveness, the President of Individual and Family Plans, and the office of Customer Service Grievances.

A few days later I got a voicemail from an Executive Inquiry Coordinator, apologizing for mis-addressing his response to my letter. The next day I got the letter itself. It began, “Dear Ms. Doyle.”

Other than that, it was a very good letter, expressing condolences for my loss and apologizing for the stress that my customer service ordeal had caused me. It acknowledged each of my complaints and told me that my suggestions would be incorporated into updated wording for their scripted templates. I was told that the individuals who were supposed to call me but didn’t would be contacted.

Maybe at another time I would have just let it go. The guy did call to apologize for the error, and he did send a corrected letter. But COME ON.

As I said in my follow-up letter to Markovich, which I think of now as “Blue Shield Letter Part II, Revenge of the Widow”:  “Look, I know you are a company run by humans, and humans make mistakes. But to have a thoughtless mistake appear in a follow up letter to a very detailed and measured letter of complaint is just mind-boggling…Mr. ___________’s corrected letter satisfied my desire to be heard, and it sounds like there may be some positive changes with respect to the scripts that your customer service representatives use in similar situations. I do appreciate his attempt to rectify the error, but it is regrettable that the error happened at all.”

I never got the letter from Markovich I was secretly hoping for, but I did get another letter from the Executive Inquiry Coordinator who sent the mis-addressed letter. Let’s put it through the SorryWatch filter and see how it holds up.

“In your correspondence you mentioned that you are unhappy with the mistake on the salutation on the previous response. You would also like assurances that you will not receive any more mailings from Blue Shield addressed to your late husband.” By paraphrasing my letter back to me, he shows that he carefully read it. It’s also a signal that these things will be addressed further in the body of his letter. He has my attention.

“Let me first offer my apology for the error in my previous letter and regret any further stress this may have caused you. I would also like to apologize for the continued mailings from Blue Shield Life addressed to your late husband and can see how these may cause rehashing of painful feelings or memories.” This is just what I wanted to see, a show of understanding of the upset this caused me. Was it overkill to use “apology” and “apologize” in consecutive sentences? I don’t have a problem with that.

“At this time I have placed your old policy on the do not mail list. In addition in case there are mailings we are legally obligated to send such as the Certificate of Creditable Coverage, we have put a note on this account requesting all mailing be sent to The Estate of Jeffrey McManus, so they will be addressed in what we hope you find is a more appropriate way.” This is good—but why doesn’t Blue Shield do this as a matter of course when a death certificate is received? I’d rather hear that their policies are going to be reviewed.

He closes with the standard “if you have additional questions regarding this letter and its contents, please contact me at the number below.”

I wrote my original letter of complaint not to blow off steam, but to offer constructive criticism on Blue Shield’s handling of survivors’ accounts after the death of a customer. In sharp contrast is the way USAA handled my accounts when I contacted them after Jeffrey’s death. They have a special department that handles these phone calls, with representatives who are compassionate and knowledgeable. In other words, no odd scripting like “do you know how you were related to your dead loved one?” In the end, I feel that my issues were satisfactorily resolved, but I’m not entirely confident that Blue Shield is equipped to make the kinds of organizational changes needed to prevent this happening to someone in the same situation in the future.

Carole Newton McManus is a technology and social media consultant in San Francisco. She is documenting the strange and surprising things that grief is teaching her at http://nostalgia4thefuture.tumblr.com/.