The Intrusive Flood of Health Insurance Calls: Make It Stop!

If my phone rings one more time today I'm going to lose it! Have you ever felt that way thanks to spam or telemarketing calls?

This is where I'm at currently and to be perfectly honest, it's my own fault. After seeing an ad for short-term health insurance, I decided to check it out online. In order to see the quotes, I had to give my email address and phone number and like a fool, I gave my actual cell phone number instead of a fake one. And that's where my current cell phone hell began...

I hate to generalize, but here we are. I think after about 100 calls in less than 24 hours (and I'm not exaggerating one bit), I'm qualified to make and share this opinion - health insurance agents are relentless and sometimes super rude.

It all started 0.1 second after I put my cell phone number in the box on the online form. NO JOKE! I didn't even have a chance to take a deep breath in before my cell phone began ringing. I started off being nice, but I would say around the tenth call or so, I began getting a lot less friendly. And for the first hour, the calls were coming in two at a time. I would answer one and then instantly the next one was in queue waiting.

I told every caller to please take me off the list and a few were nice enough to oblige. But then there were the few that made me put my boxing gloves on.

(And before you ask why I answered each call, it was because I naively thought if I answered and asked to be taken off the list, they wouldn't call me again. And that seems to be how this is going. But there's SOOOOO many of them.)

One man argued with me. LEGIT ARGUED with me! I told him I no longer needed insurance and please take me off the list. He asked why. When I said I just don't need it, he asked who I have my insurance with so he can note it. I kindly told him that's not his business. He then flipped a switch and became super rude.

Then there was the woman who woke up and chose evil. When I asked her to nicely remove me from their list, she asked why. (I can't believe anyone would question such a request and get defensive about it.) When I told her I'm no longer in need of insurance, she snapped and screamed, "Well I'm trying to help you and you clearly don't want my help, so have a blessed day, ma'am." (OMG did she just call me old?)

I blocked each number as they called but then got wise and silenced all calls that are not contacts saved in my phone. Obviously, that's not a long-term solution, but it will get me through the day. I filled out the Do Not Call form on the site I was on when this disaster began, and even put myself on the National Do Not Call list for good measure.

After a quick search on social media, I found that I'm far from alone in this annoyance.

A TikToker who goes by @Bossybimbo on the app feels my pain and understands the frustration of never-ending phone calls.

"Ahhhh! If you ever want to ruin somebody's life and make them have to change their phone number, put their phone number into pickhealthinsurance.com," she said. "They won't stop calling!"

More than 1 million viewers watched her video and thousands left comments about their own personal experiences.

"HOW DO I GET RID OF THIS? I think someone did it to me. I get like 20+ calls every day," one person wrote. Another said, "I just tried to block all of them as they were coming in but I haven’t been able to stop it completely."

Over on Reddit, @vaguely-ominous also knows this pain all too well.

"Someone used my phone number for a health insurance quote and now I’m being bombarded. PLEASE HELP. I’ve received 27 calls and five text messages in the last five hours. All of the text messages and the calls I’ve answered have been from health insurance agents or companies trying to offer me, or Andres rather, an insurance quote," they wrote on Reddit.

"PLEASE HELP ME. I feel like I am fighting a losing battle, and it’s only been five hours. It is insanely annoying, and I don’t know what else to do."

Another Redditor started their own thread, and while it's 9 years old, it's the same scenario. (Which gives me no faith that this trend will ever end.)

"I was trying to look into health care last night, and someone gave me the link to 'obamacareusa.org.' I filled out the form asking for your information, including the phone number slot, because I couldn't continue otherwise," they wrote. (And this was my exact scenario!)

"I got two calls that night talking about a health insurance request (the calls went to voicemail) but I didn't think much of it. Today I have 24 so far. It started at 7 a.m. and it's been continuing almost every hour. They won't stop! I would have muted my phone, but I need the sound on because I'm waiting to get a call back for jobs."

A few months ago, a viewer of this Redditor's thread commented, "I know this is an old thread but it’s National Health Alliance. They’re scammers. They will not stop calling you. It’s stalking and harassment. File a claim with police and the FTC."

Carter Budenz, a TikTok content creator and "health insurance expert" shared some tips on how to get the annoying calls to stop.

"How many of you have been bombarded with hundreds of phone calls from different agents about health insurance?" he asked. "You tell them to take you off the list and you keep getting all these calls."

He explained why that happens and how to avoid it.

"So when you submit a request online for health insurance, on some website, they're gonna use your information and then sell it to other insurance agents, multiple, and so you're gonna get thousands of calls from people you don't know," he said.

"Even if you told them to take you off their list, somebody else has your information that they haven't talked to you yet so they're gonna keep calling."

He said that to avoid this type of annoying and frustrating situation, do not put your information online on any of these sites. It's best to find an agent and reach out to them for information.

And FYI...while I was writing this, MORE calls have come in. That's 31 today alone!!!