Hi. boy your story is just like mine except we have 3 negative marks on our Credit Reports. We never owed any of the bills, the insurance company sent the bills in for "re-insurance". Dan's bills added up to more than 100,000.
My insurance company has written letters on our behalf to the Credit Agencies telling them we didn't owe the money, that the paperwork fell behind etc, so far the marks are still there. It has effected our Car and Home Insurance rates, we received letters stating that we don't get our discounts due to our credit rating.
We have had credit card companies lower our available credit...it goes on and on.
We did get the bills, but believe me, we did not have the 40,000 to pay the over due bills. We always called the collection agency and referred them to the Insurance Company who told them it was in process.

Good Luck.
Sherrie