Insurance commissioner warns of health insurance robocalls

Unsolicited phone calls selling health insurance plans during this year’s open enrollment period could be robocalls trying to sell a scam, the state’s insurance commissioner warned Monday.
Anyone receiving an automated sales call selling health insurance should be aware of the legitimacy of the product and the call, Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman said in statement.
”Consumers should always be wary of unsolicited health insurance sales calls,” Altman said. “If a consumer is contacted by an automatic robocall about buying insurance or changing a plan and hasn’t previously listed a phone number, they should contact their agent or insurance company before making any decisions.”
Receiving a sales call from an organization you haven’t given your information to, prerecorded messages telling you to press a key to be taken off of a call list or a call selling insurance at a suspiciously discounted rate call all be signs of a scam phone call, Altman said.
Last year, an estimated 47.8 billion robocalls were made in the U.S., which increased by more than 50% from 30.5 billion in 2017, according to the Irvine, Calif.-based YouMail Robocall Index.
“If a consumer ever receives an unsolicited, suspicious call from someone claiming to be from the insurance department, please contact us, as well as law enforcement,” Altman said.
To protect against the calls, Altman suggests adding the number being called to the Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call Registry.
Other methods include avoiding calls from unknown numbers or verifying a caller by hanging up and calling the organization directly and not pressing keys when prompted, which can alert the caller that the phone number is working.

CREDIT: Ioannis Pashakis