I've had a cancer policy with AFLAC for 40 years, it's a good one and you can't get one with those same benifits today. In 2004 my wife was hospitalized for 12 days right after Thanksgiving, the vairous tests and biopsies indicated a slow moving form of blood cancer and she's been on a chemo "horse" pill ever since. When taken with her Parkinsons meds it makes her sooo sick, can hardly function some days. Well, last year it was suggested I contact AFLAC re. her situation and see if it qualified for some sort of payment. I called, they agreed I should submit a small amount of records for the hosp. stay and the associated benefits given on what they call a "first occurence" benefit. On TV you always see them talk about how fast they pay, well they were right on that. I sent it in on a Friday a couple months back, I had an email the following Friday saying the check was in the mail. That Saturday we received a check for a few $$ less than $7k. It would have been $14k but since she's not the policy carrier, as a dependent it only paid 50%. I'll take that any day.
When I first contacted them last November, it was suggested I only submit the preliminary stuff to see if it was a bonifide case, thereby saving us the trouble of digging up all the various dr. and hosp. bills going back to 2004....believe me, there's a bunch. We have excellent insurance along with Medicare so we don't make any copayments except for some prescriptions, and it's quite small. When I explained that to AFLAC, they told me they wanted to see what the billings were before any insurance kicked in. Holy Cow! So I started calling Medicare for old records.....useless effort. I was able to get dr. records from Sept., 2010 forward but that still left a gap from November, 2004 up to Sept., 2010. I went back through our tax returns and was able to pull out all but 2005's meds for my wife, even then it amounted to right at $3k for just one pill over nine years. I made up a worksheet, listing her chemo meds by year and dollar amount. The next category was her dr. visits, infusions, etc., from Sept., 2010 forward which amounted to over $8k. Then I added a few odd Medicare Summary Notices for the early period which for some reason didn't get tossed. This last applicationl/claim amounts to well over $14k, so I'm wondering if the "dependent" clause applies to that as well, hope not but again....we'll take what they pay.
In the mean time, I've been talking to our supplemental insurance to see if the records are available for the early period from November, 2004 to Sept., 2010. Well, that came today and I had totally forgot about the expense of her hosp. stay in 2004. When added to the dr. visits for that same period, the next claim will be just shy of $43k. I'm almost feeling giddy but figure it's all too good to be true.
I just rec'd. an email stating they've rec'd. the recent claim for the $14k, I should know by the end of next week what they will pay, if anything. If they pay on that for all or most of the claim, the next one will be for the $43k based on records just received in today's mail.
Now you know why I'm holding my breath. They have already acknowledged it based on paying the "first occurence" benefit. My claims have been based on what they have told me to supply them. I guess we'll see. If it all gets paid, you know it will be invested carefully. Keep in mind, it's an ongoing situation so I could submit a claim annually. Needless to say, I'd much prefer she had her health back rather than making any claims on the old insurance policy. But I'm certainly glad we have it.
