California Health Insurance Quotes and Blog

When six old friends headed to a trout stream near Yosemite, Pete had no idea that he’d be hooked instead of a trout. But because of a timely prior visit to a California Health Insurance agent, the point of this painful fishing yarn turned out to be the one that got away. 

Fishing Accident!!

Pete Wafsleger was an expert fisherman. Using bait and a fiberglass rod, he usually caught his limit. One day in May, Pete and five old friends, all experienced fishermen sans one, headed up to Pete’s favorite stream in Yosemite.  They drove up in an SUV, if not exactly fuel efficient, the vehicle was “fishing efficient,” according to Sam, the SUV’s owner and driver.

The vehicle’s onboard GPS worked swell, and within an hour, the group of friends arrived in the park. Within a few more minutes, they’d found Pete’s cherished stream. “Here we are!” he yelled. Sam stopped the car. The men felt like kids playing hooky when they got out their poles, and baited their hooks. Everybody was in a good mood. Five casts, expertly launched, went out into the stream.

Before Sam sent his own cast airborne, he spoke a red flag. “How do you even know for sure there’s even fish in this stream? It’s only about six inches deep!”

Pete and the rest turned to face Sam and flashed him looks. Every trout fisherman worth his tackle knows that a trout stream is seldom more than a foot deep. Besides, they’d all pulled stringers of writhing trout from this very stream. But at that very instant, Sam launched his cast. It sailed into the air like the others – for about seven feet – until Sam hooked Pete with considerable force – right in the forehead. “Geez Sam,” they all cried in unison, “now look what you’ve done.”

For his part, Pete just stood there bleeding profusely.  Sam drove in a quite a hurry back in the way they’d come, in fact, even further, all the way to Barstow. An emergency room gurney lay waiting for Pete. As he was wheeled off into the bowels of the hospital, his friends followed along like grown puppy dogs, and Sam seemed especially bedraggled. Pete lay there bleeding and repeating in the manner of a mantra, “Thank heavens I got health insurance coverage.”

Sure enough, Pete did have a plan in place. He’d purchased it a few months back from a California Health Insurance agent who was also a fisherman of sorts.

A few days later, the friends were all having a good laugh amid a few beers, even Pete, still wearing a bandage to protect the stitches.  “Still my friend?” Sam asked Pete.

“Sure,” Pete said, “Can’t help it. I’m hooked.” At least he wasn’t the friend that got away.

California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard offers Patriot T.R.I.P. insurance coverage in the event of the unthinkable.

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One Reason You May Need Trip Cancellation Insurance

Stanford R. Doe and his wife Jane were about to board the plane, Southwest Flight 6754, at Gate 3 in LAX when they heard the news. Up until that tense moment, they’d figured that buying T.R.I.P. insurance had been one of those purchases performed out of prudence in case of the unthinkable. But in that instant, they knew.

“Mr. and Mrs. Doe wait!” the urgent voice had shouted.

Because of what had happened, the couple had no choice. They walked as if in a daze, but unassisted to the airlines ticket counter to cancel their flight to Tunisia, where Stanford and Jane had long dreamt of celebrating their second honeymoon, although their first one had occurred a mere six months earlier.

They drove the rental to inspect the ruins. A gas explosion had gutted their home and all their belongings. They stopped the rental, a Rambler station wagon, in front of what had been their front yard. “All that grass seed wasted,” Stanford told his grieving wife with tears pouring down his cheeks, “and the automatic sprinkler system, it’s b-broken,” he sobbed, his voice choked by emotion and by the odor of charred dandelions in the fetid air.

“What will the neighbors think?” Jane cried out, as if she were a wounded self-conscious beast without a split-level, which she now was.

They still had a cell phone that worked. It was purple, a sad color. She put in a call to California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, as if to be reassured like the small homeless child she’d so suddenly become in her now infantile mind. He’d been expecting

a call from the forlorn Does, after reading about the explosion in yesterday’s news. Hearing Matt answer, all she could do was sob into the receiver.

“It’s activated. Don’t worry about your trip cancellation. You have full Patriot T.R.I.P. coverage. You and Stanford wouldn’t have enjoyed Tunisia under these circumstances. The travel agent will understand about losing his commission. He won’t be angry at you for canceling,” Matt spoke softly into the phone, realizing that a couple’s dreams had been shattered, both in the sense of where they were going, and where they’d been. But at least T.R.I.P. had saved them from what might have added insult to their injury.

“Thank you so much Matt,” Jane managed to blurt.

“Just doing my job as a California Health Insurance agent,” he replied self-effacingly. “I reacted instinctively when I sold you that policy. It’s what I do.”

The Blue Card System allows Blue Cross and Blue Shield policy holders to travel and still be covered “in-network” while traveling out-side their home state.

RV Sightseeing Trip Jeopardized By Avoidable

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Pete Klodhoppian and his wife Esmeralda’s close encounter of the worst kind only ends with a Blue Card System reprieve.

Peter C. “Pete” Klodhoppian and his beloved wife of 63 years, Esmeralda, had always dreamed of using their recreational vehicle, which they considered a spacious fourteen-footer, for a sightseeing trip through the American West. “Maybe we’ll get all the way to California,” Esmeralda told Pete one day when their dream still seemed unattainable.

It was unattainable, mainly because Esmeralda had never driven a vehicle, and Pete’s license had been suspended for twelve years, when he’d been caught with an open case of Nyquil in their Buick Electra, and been charged with a DUI as he put it, “just like a school kid.” Being a confirmed procrastinator, he’d missed numerous court dates when it had happened, and fearing the “red tape” that retired persons surely must face in order to reinstate driver’s licenses, he’d “never gotten around to it.”

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But one day he did and off they went. One thing Pete suddenly noticed about Esmeralda was her curiosity. Every place they stopped along the way, she would get out and stretch her legs, and peek under every rock within reach. These obsessive Esmeraldan activities were engaged in without incident until they reached Arizona’s Painted Desert. While lifting a two-pound rock, she’d begun poking around when Pete heard a scream. Is that a bobcat? Pete mused, his natural tendency to procrastinate kicking in. Nope. Lumbering over to where his wife was standing behind their RV, he saw in the glare of his flashlight a blotchy lizard holding on to her outstretched hand, his wife’s face contorted in pain.

“It won’t let go,” she yelled again, in a surprisingly hostile manner.

“I can see that,” he said, “Looks like you caught yourself a Gila monster.” Fortunately, Pete had a cell phone. He did procrastinate, but eventually called the BlueCard Worldwide Service Center, attempting to find the nearest hospital.

“Good thing we’re BlueCard members,” he told her later in the hospital, drooling as he kissed her grossly swollen left hand and forearm.

“Stop it you old fool,” she said, still grimacing.

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