California’s biggest individual health insurer, Anthem, treats its customers with remarkable contempt. This blog post is boring, but I think it’s important to occasionally document poor behavior from powerful companies.

I received a letter December 9, “INTENT TO NON-RENEW”. They said I owed them $6.89 and had three weeks to pay up or they’d cancel me, a ten year customer. Except I didn’t owe them money. I pay all those bills automatically, the correct amount had been sent. The exact amount is for “pediatric dental insurance”, something they tacked on this year when they realize they screwed up the ACA requirements. I’m guessing their billing system failed to post one month somehow.

What is so contemptuous is the communication. They go straight from “minor problem” to “we are cancelling your health insurance”, in an officious letter, with no followup. Their customer service is terrible. I finally got through (two separate automated phone systems) to someone who could only vaguely say I look paid up and they have no idea why the letter was sent.

Anthem has a remarkable online bill pay system, BTW. Or rather they don’t, they outsource it to Princeton eCom, a site that looks like a clumsy phishing attempt. It requires a separate login. Your password is limited to 8 characters. For the billing site. Of a health insurance company.

Cancelling health insurance is a big, scary threat. Anthem appears to casually do that because of random billing errors, with no humane communication. I dread what the process will be like if I ever have a significant claim.