Approximately 750 undergraduate and graduate students are blocked from class registration for the spring 2005 semester as of today due to their failure to verify their health insurance coverage, according to Virginia Carter, the University's director of external communications.
The University informed students of the new insurance verification procedure through three mass e-mails, postings on the weekly Connections e-mail sent out by the Vice-President for Student Affairs' Office and a letter included in tuition bills last spring.
"We will try one more time to reach them to stress the urgency that they need health insurance and that they need to verify it," Carter said.
Insurance Compliance Coordinator Jennifer Krugmann said she has recently received hundreds of phone calls from students who have been blocked. She said the most common complaints are that students did not know about the new process, had trouble logging in or were unsure about the information on their insurance card.
The students who have been blocked include an "even mix of everybody," not just first-year and international students, Krugmann said.
The University has required that all students have health insurance coverage since 1967.
"The reason why students are required to have health insurance is to make sure they don't run into huge medical bills while they're students," Carter said.
Student Health Director James Turner said he is surprised that not all students have complied with the new procedure.
"I would have thought that as undergraduates, students would want to register for classes," Turner said.
To verify health insurance coverage, students should go to the Student Health Web site and click on the "Health Insurance Verification" link on the Bulletin Board or directly contact Student Health with individual questions.
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