Insurance policy fees

A: A growing trend among insurance companies is to charge a fee for services that were once free to policyholders. Assurant Health, for example, now charges $10 for a duplicate policy or ID card and $20 for a payment by phone or a returned check. The fees tend to be lower than those charged by banks for similar services, but may come as a surprised to policyholders who were used to having these benefits for free. The insurance companies argue that these fees keep the premium costs lower for everyone by only charging those individuals who incur the costs for extra services. Similarly, agents used to be paid by the insurance company are increasingly likely to charge their client directly, rather than have this as a built-in cost of the policy. Some customers like this because they know what their agent is paid and are not concerned that sales commissions motivate the agent. One advantage of paying the duplicate policy fee is that the policy is delivered by FedEx or another service with signature request, so you are assured that it will not be lost in transit again. All of the companies that charge these fees, to my knowledge, still offer the same services for free online. So if you don't want to pay the fee, just get the instructions on how to download and print the policy yourself. None of the insurance companies listed at FreedomBenefits.net charge a fee for an additional policy or ID card download.