BBB Alerts Senior Citizens, Consumers About Insurance Company

The Better Business Bureau has issued an alert for an insurance company that might be using questionable mailings and marketing strategies to garner additional business and sidestep the do-not-call list rules.

Adelle Walker, 76, received a mailing regarding additional information for Medicare beneficiaries a few years ago. After sending it back with her contact information, the Florissant woman began receiving a number of phone calls from Senior Health Group about insurance.

Ever since, she’s had to continue to tell the company that she’s not interested in its services.

“I’m not dealing with anyone else if they’re not with Medicare,” she said. “They’ll end up calling me again. They’re just wasting their time.”

Several other consumers who have dealt with Senior Health Group, which is also known as Senior Health Team or B.D.H., but most prominently known as Haberstroh Insurance Agency, have seen the mailings and the company’s tactics as deceptive.

BBB of St. Louis Investigator Bill Smith said that the bureau receives daily calls about the Bridgeton-based company.

Haberstroh uses an outside company, National Reply Center, to mail thousands of postcards to seniors in Missouri, Illinois, Kansas and Indiana. The company’s name is not included anywhere on the card, according to a BBB press release.

Once seniors return the postcards with their contact information, the company has stated that gives them permission to contact them—even if they’re on the do-not-call list. 

“From its postcards to its telemarketing activities, much of its solicitation activity seems designed to mislead consumers,” Michelle Corey, BBB President and CEO, said in a press release. “In most cases, the unwary targets appear to be senior citizens.”

This isn’t the first time that the company has been questioned or investigated regarding its marketing tactics.

In 2008, Haberstroh agreed to pay the state of Missouri $65,000 and change its marketing tactics after the Missouri Attorney General found that the company had been calling people on the do-not-call list, which is illegal.

Smith said that the company currently doesn’t have a BBB rating, but they’re awaiting further information from the company.

He said that eight or nine formal complaints have been filed against the company in the past, and the company has acknowledged its plan is to get around the do-not-call list.

Patricia A. Haberstroh, the company’s secretary and mother of the owner, said that using an outside company to generate sales leads is common in the insurance industry, according to the release. She continued to say that the do-not-call list law hurts insurance brokers' chances of garnering business.

The BBB urges senior citizens and other consumers to use care in dealing with these mailings and calls.

For more information, visit the BBB’s website or call 314-645-3300.