My good friend, Steve, sells legal plans. I’m not actually sure what you call the category, but the brand is Legal Shield. Here’s an overview. Most of his customers are companies, because it’s a benefit that HR departments like to provide their employees (usually at cost), but he can sell to individuals, too. I used to have “group legal” at Microsoft, and I liked it, so a couple of months ago, I bought one of these plans from Steve and hadn’t thought much about it since.

Recently, our health insurance got totally messed up somehow. Multiple different practices have been sending us bills, because some of our claims were rejected. It’s super confusing, so it’s hard to tell whether the mistake is with the providers, BCBS California (my employer’s health plan), BCBS Michigan (my old self-serve health plan), or some billing service. It’s been driving us crazy!

I complained about my insurance snafu to Steve a few times, and he kept encouraging me to contact Legal Shield. I didn’t see why, since I don’t see somebody to sue. “Doesn’t matter – call them.”

Finally, I called (just a few minutes ago). Their process is amazing – a very pleasant lady answered my call (she wasn’t a lawyer … not sure there’s a correlation or not), made sure my info was up-to-date, started a case file, and worked with me to summarize my complaint. Just that process was helpful! Walking through the problem with her helped me understand better where the issue is.

The next step is a lawyer will call me back. I mentioned that I’m on the phone all day, so there might be phone tag, and she said, “What time do you get off work? Would you like a call back then?” Uh … yeah! It’s not a 24-hour thing (although they do have a 24-hour hotline to call if I ever get arrested), but it’s pretty awesome that they can work a bit outside my work hours. I should get a call back in a couple of hours.

It’s too early to tell if my Legal Shield attorney will be the solution to this particular problem, but the process has certainly been positive so far. I’m impressed.

If you happen to be interested in such a service for yourself or your company, contact Steve at Legal Shield, he’ll hook you up! I also got the identify theft protection … had a few fraudulent charges a while back, and I’d like to make resolving that simpler in the future.