I don’t consider myself to be an idiot in most cases, but when I am approached about something which will help my family and me in cases of emergencies, I guess I am very gullible. My story begins when I was teaching school and often times insurance agents would require a portion of our time after school had ended for the day. This is what happened on this particular day. After my students had gone home, I made my way to the library to hear the insurance agent’s story.

The agent was selling long term disability insurance. I was interested and I had already purchased short term disability insurance. I hoped to never use either policy, but you never know, so I signed up for it and the payments began to be debited from my monthly check.

I have heart issues and I needed a defibrillator, so in October 2003, I received my first implant. To make a short story long, by March of 2004 I left my teaching position and went out on disability. I received my short term and my long term disability insurance. The short term disability was so pleasant and was never a heartache to receive. The long term disability insurance was another headache altogether.

Some months I would receive a check from the long term and other months, I would receive a letter explaining how they had overpaid me, so they would be subtracting the amount from the amount I should have received. It was a very confusing, frustrating, and financially unstable time for my family and me because the insurance was something we just couldn’t count on.

After a time, the insurance company began to send me letters stating that when I received my social security disability, I would be required to pay them back for the amount they had given me. I didn’t believe this because the insurance agent who came to the school to sell it, never once mentioned this small bit of information. And wasn’t insurance for emergency situations and I had never heard of paying back insurance because I had been paying premiums? This is where the gullible part comes in.

After I received my social security disability, I began to be hounded by the insurance company and their lawyers. They wanted their $19,000 and some odd dollars and they wanted it right then. At the time, the insurance company was not my priority because I had lots of doctor, hospital, and medicinal bills that needed to be taken care of first. I even approached my congressmen and my governor to help me with this issue.