by Phyllis McCrossin

King and I have spent the past week completing forms through the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan. I really have no idea what the agency is, but it’s through the state, so you can imagine it’s frustrating as all get out to complete the forms.

This past summer our 22-year-old granddaughter borrowed our (fully insured) car and totaled it. Apparently they swerved to miss a deer, lost control and spun out, and creamed a tree while traveling backwards. Our granddaughter shattered the middle finger on her left hand in the accident. There were no other injuries and the deer escaped unharmed. (Apparently for insurance purposes they should have hit it).

Our automobile insurance covered the car, but we are still trying to get her medical bills paid. Suffice it to say I fear it is a lesson in futility.

I was with her on the day she went to the hospital for surgery to repair her finger. The surgery was intense and the x-rays of the repaired finger look like steam-punk art with all the pins and plates in place. While she was in surgery I received a call from Bronson Health billing for our automobile insurance policy information, which I gave them.

One would think a hospital billing department would know who to bill, correct? Or they would know that automobile insurance would not cover it – right? Apparently not. Two months after the fact our granddaughter received a $16,000+ bill from the hospital.

So we did what we always do. Sic King on them. Several phone calls later King learned the sad truth that our insurance would not cover the medical, but there was a handy-dandy program through the state that would. (This is after our agent assured him it would be covered – I guess no one knew).

King loves a good argument, and he is good at it. I’ve listened to him many times while arguing on the phone and when he hangs up he has basically told the person on the other end to take a flying leap, and they don’t realize it. Occasionally they even thank him for it. I think his patience comes from years of dealing with discipline as a high school assistant principal.

I have not mastered the patience technique.

So our granddaughter went onto the MACP site and started the application process. She completed what she could and asked us to look it over. Now, as good as King is with verbal communications, he is equally bad at doing anything electronically. I can do it, but I’m not fond of it.

So correcting our granddaughter’s filing fell on me. It was four pages of drop-down menus that took me two days to figure out to use. Once figuring out the forms was mastered,  I had to go through and fix the errors. 

It was an arduous process.

First correction was the auto insurance policy number. Ok. That’s in the trailer somewhere, since I save everything. I saved the electronic file, closed it and looked for the policy number.

Log back on to complete and/or fix more blanks.

Next, several lines down they needed a VIN. Save, close, find the VIN, log back on.

Then it was a copy of the police report. Save, close, find report. Log back on. (I should note that sometimes this is a matter of days to get the info from the appropriate agencies).

Shoot. I now need the name of the witness, the name of the officer, the name and address of the ER and a copy of the ER bill. Save, close. Find the info, log back on.

Now all that is needed is a signature. There is no e-sign, so the form has to be printed, mailed back to our granddaughter, signed and mailed, emailed, or faxed back to the state.

Spend another hour looking for printing instructions. Find them and read through. At the very bottom of the last page of the instructions there is a notice that the form may only be edited four times.

King got back on the phone yet again. He learned we can write out the responses using lined paper and corresponding numbers to the answers we want to change.

It’s really not a very assuring process.