【B1】 【B8】

Things have changed in your life. Most notably, you are no longer employed. Perhaps you’ve been laid off from your former workplace. Perhaps you are in the process of starting a business. Perhaps you are staying home to care for a child you’ve recently adopted. You decide to apply for a variety of insurances that will help you to manage the risks inherent in life(health, life, disability). A few weeks after filling out your applications, you receive a reply from the insurance company that goes something like, "Dear So-and-so. Upon review of your application we are sorry to report that we cannot insure you at this time". A rejection? What’s that all about? You call them up and find that they have rejected your application for certain insurances because of your past history of mental illness.
    Outrageous, right? Nope. This is more or less how our insurance system works.
    The chain of events that has led up to your insurance rejection went something like this. All those years ago when you were in therapy, your diagnosis was sent back to the insurance company that was paying for your therapy. They, in turn, sent it out to an institution known as MIB(short for "Medical Information Bureau", not "Men In Black"). MIB is a not-for-profit data warehouse sponsored by major insurance carriers. MIB’s purpose is to record, retain and share personal medical information collected about you by an insurance company with other insurance companies. As part of the standard process of reviewing your application for insurance coverage, the insurance company called up MIB and took a look at your record. Noting the "mental illness" diagnosis there, they decided that it was not in their interests to offer you insurance because of your previous diagnosis. The reasoning would be something Nike, "This person may very well get depressed again in the future, possibly even depressed enough so that you require treatment or become disabled. We’d have to pay for that treatment. There is, therefore, too much risk involved in insuring this person."