8 ms·

While I very much agree that how they did it is incredibly shady, the person applied to long term disability insurance. I correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it

• markus92 7y ago
  That would actually be illegal in a lot of places. Not sure how it would be in the USA but in most countries in Europe that wouldn't fly. They would be allowed to ask questions about your medical history, but medical records themselves are an absolute no go.
  • MandieD 7y ago
    For long-term disability insurance in Germany, they can ask for permission to get information from your doctors for conditions you've revealed during the application process, and deny coverage if you do not give them permission. Omitting said conditions would be grounds for non-payment of benefits if what made you unable to work is in any way related to a condition they asked you about and you didn't reveal.
  • kop316 7y ago
    Playing devil's advocate, why would I as an insurance company want to insure you if I don't have access to your medical records to verify preexisting conditions? I say that because then a person could have a preexisting condition, sign up for insurance, then go on long term disability due to the preexisting condition.
    • bb88 7y ago
      NAL, but isn't that insurance fraud?
      • kop316 7y ago
        It definitely is, but I imagine that doesn't stop dishonest people.
    • ken 7y ago
      Just because a company has a financial interest in learning a piece of information doesn't make it legal to acquire that information in any possible way. Pasting a signature onto a different document sounds like a clear cut case of fraud.
      • kop316 7y ago
        I'm not disagreeing that the method is shady. I'm saying if I'm the insurance company, why would I offer disability insurance if I can't verify the existence or absence of a preexisting? condition
        • whatisthiseven 7y ago
          The answer is the insurance company wouldn't. Easy. Why are you asking, though? Companies shouldn't commit fraud just because they want something.
          • kop316 7y ago
            I'm asking because I'm only hearing one side of the story. I have had to E-sign documents before and they always say the documents are available to reading, to which I always ask for it. I've never had an issue with that, especially with insurance companies. Furthermore, the insurance the person is asking for is disability insurance. Common sense dictates that they will ask for medical records, and therefore need a HIPAA disclosure document. If what the poster alleges it true, I agree wholeheartly that it should have been more clear in signing up for it, but it seems odd that the poster didn't think that state farm would ask for medical release forms for disability insurance. TL;DR, I think there's more to the story than what is alleged here.
            • whatisthiseven 7y ago
              But why not state that rather than question begging? To everyone else, it seemed you were hammering away at some important point but without any context. Honestly, though, so many ads for insurance say you don't need a doctor visit, or health checkup, or whatever. I could easily see customers getting confused thinking they wouldn't need to give over health documents because the ads are deliberately misleading. Just because a business's practice is obvious to itself and those in the know, doesn't mean customers can get fleeced because "they should have known better". Caveat Emptor is kind of bullshit with such high information asymmetry.
    • matz1 7y ago
      If you are insurance company you should want it. If you are customer you shouldn't want it. Every party can have different interest and should fight for their own interest.
      • kop316 7y ago
        If I'm an insurance company, I wouldn't provide coverage without it.
        • mijoharas 7y ago
          If I'm an insurance company, it would be best for my bottom line to not pay anyone that got sick and immediately terminate their "insurance". Literally the only thing that is stopping insurance companies from doing that is a contract, so if an insurance company is forging consent for a contract, that should be somewhat worrying. The insurance company is well within their right to not provide coverage without that consent. They are not within their right to forge that consent, which is the issue here.
  • prepend 7y ago
    In the US it is allowed in every state. It requires patient consent to disclose the information. So I can refuse to share that information and then every long term insurance company will refuse to issue coverage. It’s not allowed for insurance companies to pull information without consent.
  • donalhunt 7y ago
    GDPR (that thing that happened in Europe) was highly focused on consent and the use of your data. IANAL but it's highly likely that you could claim you had not provided consent for the actions taken by State Farm in this case (though I wouldn't be surprised if their small print allowed such things). Of course, just because they have attached your signature to an unseen document will likely still require a legal case to affirm that it was illegal or unethical (probably little to no case law in this area).
  • marcinzm 7y ago
    This information is required for them to evaluate your risk and give you a price for insurance which is their core business. As a result, as I understand it, under GDPR you can refuse but they can also refuse to give you insurance as a result.
  • okusername 7y ago
    For private insurance in Europe you have to sign disclosure documents for all your doctors and medical history, at least in all 5 countries I have insight in. It's perfectly legal and standard.
• ldoughty 7y ago
  This doesn't seem shady, the form the tweet posted explicitly said it authorized state farm to request his medical, employment, and other records on his behalf. The only "shady" thing might be not sending the authorization form he signed with their HIPPA request to show the source of the signature, but revealing he's seeking a long term disability claim could also be a HIPPA violation itself... Regardless, the form says he authorized state farm to do exactly what they did: request his medical records without further approval from him (otherwise he might have needed to fill out each additional requests manually, which perhaps was an option if he declined this, we don't know)
  • aphyr 7y ago
    As I stated in the immediately following tweet in the thread, I was not presented with those forms at signing time. I had no idea they existed or that my signature would be applied to them.
  • endogui 7y ago
    > the form the tweet posted explicitly said ... > the form says he authorized ... You seem to be repeatedly missing the point: he claims to have never seen nor signed this form. The "signature" is decidedly pixellized. The claim is that the insurance company put his name on this form without showing it to him, which both defeats the point of the form and is a crime (forgery) in the US.
• kerkeslager 7y ago
  Forging signatures to fake consent for privacy violations is never reasonable. I get what you're saying, but it's irrelevant, and draws attention away from the crime being committed.
  • kop316 7y ago
    My point is I really am only hearing one side of the story. If true, I wholeheartedly agree. However, my experience with those "payments" is closer to "I have read the contract, agree to terms, etc." I am given the oppritunity to see the contract to review before I sign it, and walk out with it signed. Also, my point is common sense tells me that state farm would want to see my medical records to make sure I am not lying about previous disabilities (we are talking about disability insurance, not car or renters insurance), and usually you sign a contract for insurance. From a flow standpoint, I can see why state farm would only do one signature if it is all digital versus making the person sign five times, when all it says is "I have reviewed form X and agree." But if someone doesn't actually review all of the documents, then something like this happens.
    • kerkeslager 7y ago
      No one is confused about why State Farm wants the data. The reason you're not hearing about why they want the data, is that why they want the data is irrelevant. That's not "the other side of the story", that's irrelevant information that doesn't justify State Farm forging signatures to fake consent for privacy violations. There aren't two sides to every story, and this appears to be a case where there is only one side to the story. Do you think that anything you've said justifies State Farm forging signatures to fake consent to violate clients' privacy? If not, why are you polluting the conversation with irrelevant information?
      • kop316 7y ago
        I was trying to be nice to the poster. Being blunt, I think the poster has no idea how insurance works, and didn't bother to read anything while signing up. Now they are upset because they actually read it. Or being less charitable, they did understand the process, and wanted to create fake outrage about it. But the story does not add up to me at all taken at face value.
• nwallin 7y ago
  It's the how, not the why. I want a million dollars. Wanting a million dollars is perfectly reasonable, lots of people want a million dollars. It's not reasonable to walk into a bank and cash a check with Bill Gates' forged signature on it. Which is exactly what State Farm did. That's not shady, it's fraud, and it's very illegal.
• hamburglar 7y ago
  There is no problem with the fact that they want the information. However, if they want this information, they have to get his consent to obtain it. They faked that consent by putting his signature on a document he didn't sign. That's the problem.