Now that Chef and I are legal, I had him added to my work insurance policy (aren’t I sweet?). Working in a small local restaurant, he’s unlikely to ever have the option of buying into a work-related plan, and dog knows we’ll never be able to afford private coverage. The truth is that my company does provide a really nice heath plan, including eye and dental coverage, which is why Chef was so thrilled to get in on it after being uninsured for about ten years.
Last week we got the updated insurance cards. My name was listed at the top, Lauren H Lastname, and Chef’s was listed at the bottom, Chef C Lauren’s Lastname. I’d taken great pains to ensure that his name was listed in full on the application, a name that in no way resembles mine since I’d kept my birth name.
Of course I found this hilarious, but he pointed out that this might present a problem should I have to cart his ass into the emergency room. This morning, while making a series of calls to find out what I owe on health bills and credit cards I didn’t know I had, I also called the insurance company to get Chef’s name changed on our insurance coverage. When I explained the predicament to the customer service rep, she laughed and laughed. And then called her employers idiots.
We have friends in all kinds of places.
I love that Chef has become Chef OfLauren.
Yeah, we’ve occasionally gotten the Joel Gazis thing, along with the Lynn Sax thing. My favorite insurance company mistake (now that it’s been corrected) was the time an insurance company accidentally made Joel a two-year-old child, making him ineligible for most of his prescriptions, since they’re for illnesses toddlers tend not to have.
My husband was listed as Hisfirstname Mylastname on the mortgage pre-approval the bank sent we got, even though we’d gone through the whole “oh, wait, your last name is different” on the phone with the bank.
The bills from the pediatrician are sent to me Myfirstname Sonslastname, even though they have all our three different correct names on file.
At least all the insurance messed up was his date of coverage.
When I was a child, my insurance card said I was male; it took my mother multiple tries to get it fixed.
It’s like there is an Idiot Rule that they always have to try and give you the wrong last name at least once. Insurance companies. Schools. Luckily, spouse also sees the humor in constantly being referred to as Mr. Mythago.
Credit reporting agencies, too; I found out that a default judgment against my mother based on her not really being too arsed to pay the bill for the ambulance which transported my dead father from the house, where he died, to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, all on account of state law being that you have to be declared dead by a doctor, and yet the insurance company won’t pay the ambulance bill because he wasn’t admitted (’course not, his being dead and all) somehow wound up on my credit.
Mom’s name was Mary Ann. Mine has several of the same letters, in the same order. The judgment was issued in a third name, which was neither of ours but also had some of the same letters, in the same order. The credit reporting agencies decided it must be my debt, since it was one name instead of two, even though I’d never lived at that address until after the judgment was obtained (I was in law school in Michigan at the time).
When I was notified of this (by the bar admission folks in Connecticut, who said they couldn’t approve my application because I’d lied on the question that said I had never had a judgment against me), I pulled my credit report and discovered that somehow, Mom’s credit and mine had been tangled up for YEARS. Like, long before I had any credit history at all. There was a G.Fox card on my account, but I’d not only never had a G. Fox card, I didn’t get my first credit card until after G. Fox had become Filene’s. Ditto with Sage Allen.
Interestingly, none of my stuff made it onto Mom’s. I think they had issues with her having two first names, and just picked the closest approximation at the same address.
Also, some of my bills for my actual, acknowledged accounts got routed to my brother, who has the same first initial. He was going through officer training and then onto Germany, so from time to time, I’d get a bill with postmarks from DC, Ft. Leonard Wood, and Germany, along with multiple forwarding orders.
Oh, also amusing: I used to date a guy whose last name was Siewko (pronounced “Sefko”). He got the most interesting junk mail. Psycho, Syko, Sicko. Good times.