An Afternoon With Insurance Companies

It’s the last thing I want to do - spend all afternoon talking to insurance companies. But I had to. We were in a rear end collision two weeks ago. Luckily the driver had insurance and assumed all liability. That included a trip to the urgent care center for a sore neck. We used our health insurance at the visit, but their insurance eventually paid for it and direct deposited the funds in to our bank account. So I checked the portal and saw that the claim was processed yesterday and called my insurance company to tell them that I owed them money for the urgent care visit. It took at least thirty minutes to figure out what to do - put on hold, taking to supervisor, put on hold, etc. I asked her if this was not a common occurrence since they didn’t seem to know what to do. I just needed an address to send a check! I was doing them a favor - actually - just doing the right and honest thing. It wasn’t a huge amount but the idea of not reporting the incident goes against my grain. In the end it occurred to me that maybe people don’t report these sorts of things and that’s why the insurance company didn’t know how to respond. Yes, they work directly with the “other” insurance companies to collect funds after accidents, but those are probably for serious and expensive claims. I hope that’s not the case. I’m thinking I might write a letter to the insurance company about this experience. But how would they know if a claim is accident related? I think it’s up to the user to report it. How likely is that?