Victoria Silman | News Editor
Featured Image: The invalid email address has been on the YFS radar for years. | Fatema Ali
Opting out of the health and dental plan isn’t the easiest of ventures. Students are automatically opted into the plan, and have to go online to request a refund within a certain amount of time—and it just became a bit more difficult.
Carol Bresgi opted out of her son’s health insurance plan last September, hoping to receive the full $245 refund to her account. Later, she was contacted by Greenshield, the insurance company York student insurance operates through, who provided her with an email to send proof of other insurance. The email, provided by Greenshield is listed as yfshp@yfs.cay.
Having sent her proof to the email, Bresgi thought the matter was taken care of.
“They provided an email address and I immediately sent them the documentation. I did not see a credit go through, and so I sent another email in January,” she says.
“I reviewed it again February 26, and realized that I had not received a response from my follow-up email in January, and also had not received the credit to my son’s account at York.”
Bresgi says she called the YFS health insurance office to get to the bottom of it, and they told her this has been an ongoing issue for years.
“The person that I spoke to at the York health insurance office told me clearly they were aware of this problem and Greenshield had been sending out the wrong email address for years. They further told me they had asked Greenshield to make the correction, but had always received an excuse like ‘the system was difficult to change,’” Bresgi adds.
A supervisor from the YFS health insurance office, who did not provide his name, mentioned the student union is “completely aware of the situation.”
Bresgi adds that Greenshield sometimes sends a follow-up email with the correct address, however, they don’t indicate the matter.
“I was told that they sometimes send another email with the correct email address, but it doesn’t specifically say there was an error with the first address. Since the two emails look identical, students assume that it’s just a duplication and still don’t realize that they have sent their proof of alternate insurance to a non-existent mailbox,” she says.
“I forwarded my email that went to the wrong address to the office at York that administers the health plan, and they assured me that we would get our $254 refund, providing my son had not used the plan.”
Greenshield could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
