My old company never stopped paying for our insurance until they realized the error two years later. Please help❗️

TL;DR: I just found out that a company I worked for many years ago never stopped paying for our health insurance until they realized the error in October 2023. Now I am being contacted by my current and old health insurance telling me that they weren’t my primary coverage during that time. I have contacted my old company’s HR and am looking for some advice on how to proceed.

Here’s the scoop: I (F30) started working at this company (IL) in 2020. From 2020-2021 we had BCBS. In 2022 we switched to Cigna and another secondary insurance I am not recalling the name of. I left that job at the end of 2022 and began new coverage with UHC through a job in AZ in March of 2023. I then had coverage with UHC with this job from 3/23-9/23 at which point I switched to a different company (CA) that also used UHC and I am currently covered by UHC with a start date of 9/3/23. I was double covered by UHC from 9/3-9/30/23 from those two jobs as the one company’s coverage went through September and the others started on the 3rd.

Here is the issue: My old old company never cancelled, and continued paying for (they paid for all of our health insurance), our whole company of ~20 people’s BCBS coverage until a new person joined the team and realized the error effectively cancelling the coverage on 10/1/23 (almost a year after I left this company). I did not realize this until about a week ago when I started receiving letters from UHC questioning who my primary insurance was during this time.

After a total of 6+ hours on the phone with UHC and BCBS I have realized what is going on. When I realized, I emailed the new HR person from my old company. During my call with BCBS, they encouraged me to have all my claims from 2022-10/1/23 reprocessed through them as the primary insurer and then have all of my other insurances be the secondary insurance during their times of coverage. This may result in me getting some money back? Great! But a huge pain in the ass. Right now I am getting old claims sent to me that are saying I owe money even though they were long dealt with because of this error.

The HR person from my old company (someone that did not work there when I did) just said: “It is going to take me a minute to clear this all up but long story short, I am going to try to see if Blue Cross Blue Shield can back date your cancellation and show the date you were no longer with the company and this was a mistake on <<company name’s>> end (I have 10/25/2022 in the system – does that sound accurate?). I do want to ask if you have proof when your other insurance started? If so and you feel comfortable sending me that, please do so it sounds like it will help and I can upload to BCBSIL to show this was your primary coverage (UHC). Blue Cross Blue Shield is NOT quick so this might take some time. I will do my best to keep you updated.”

I do not feel comfortable sharing my information with her. At the beginning of our email thread she effectively outed the person who was responsible for this error and let me know they were no longer with the company, taking the blame off herself. She also admitted in writing that they are at fault. At this point I am wondering if it would be better that the dates remain as is and I proceed as BCBS told me to? Or do you think I should try to have her back date the cancellation? This whole thing is a huge mess and I am just looking for the best solution that will either cost me nothing or get me refunds 🥲

TIA for any help you can provide!

submitted by /u/MysteryMaven2024
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