If I cancel my "membership" can the broker who enrolled me also cancel my marketplace insurance?
Like the title says: can I cancel a membership that seems to have been added when I enrolled in the Marketplace without canceling my insurance? I'm not asking about getting refunded.
Familiar story. New to Marketplace insurance. Signed up via a broker for Blue Cross, signed an authorization (this turns out to be the authorization for the "membership"), was told the premium would be ~$104, and paid $99 with a credit card (thought I was prepaying the first month of premiums). Everything was fine after that, especially when the premium was only $4.91 a month.
Then I see I'm getting recurring monthly $99 charges from Premier Health Solutions for NextStep Health Value 2.0. The product description expressly says this is a "membership" ("Thank you for enrolling in a membership program through us") and that "NextStep Health is not insurance and does not satisfy ACA minimum essential coverage" and that "I understand that when I cancel my automatic payments, all memberships I am enrolled in will also be cancelled."
I called my insurance to ask about this; they said Premier Health Solutions had nothing to do with them and indicated I could cancel NextStep and my insurance would not notice. But when I called the brokerage that handled my enrollment, I was told that canceling NextStep would cancel my "major insurance" as well (and that I'd be ineligible for Marketplace insurance, without a QLE, until November). They made it sound like a bundle (the insurance and the membership), with the former contingent on the latter.
I'm not interested here about possible broker misrepresentation, me more closely reading authorizations, or track auto-charges on my credit card. I just want to know: can I cancel the membership and not cancel my insurance? (So far, I'd say everything suggests yes, but I'm not certain enough yet, so I'm crowd-sourcing Reddit's knowledge and experience).
- Could they have sold me a policy contingent on maintaining membership in Premier? I doubt that's legal or common, but it also wasn't disclosed to me as such. (I know I can complain to the State, and I will, but in the meantime, can I cancel the membership?) This is the only kind of condition I can imagine under which the broker could actually cancel my insurance. However, it looks more like they're just trying to intimidate and bluff me into leaving things as is.
- Who controls, owns, or manages my policy's continuance? Me, Blue Cross, or the broker? (I'm in good standing on my premiums.) If they have zero control over any of this, then I can cancel without trouble.
- The wording on the form says "memberships" will be cancelled; I don't have memberships in insurance, only Premier. If "memberships" only means Premier, I can cancel without risk to my insurance.
- Would there be a line item in my insurance policy indicating Premier as some kind of rider or supplement? (I'm writing this before digging up the policy, but I think the answer is "there's no such supplement in my policy anyway.")
- There's also no billing from Blue Cross indicating Premier on their premium invoices. Premier hasn't invoiced me; they just run the card. They don't send a receipt either.
- Also, isn't it abnormal to "pre-charge" premiums before insurance starts? But that's what they did when they ran my card in mid-January. Looks more like they were paying my first month of membership.
- What am I missing?
In particular, it'd really be helpful to hear from someone who got "enrolled" like this by these guys (or someone analogous) and cancelled their membership. Did it mess up your insurance or not?
Thanks in advance.