Medical Collection Removed after only 5 years???

[if6was9]

I'm trying to figure out what happened here. I live in Florida, where the statute of limitation is 5 years. My wife has 2 medical collections, one from 08/2008 and the other one from 11/2008, both assigned to the same collection agency. The one from 08/2008 was just removed from Equifax yesterday, exactly 5 years after the original date. I know collections are supposed to stay on your credit report for 7 years, so I'm trying to figure out what could've happened here. 

My wife had called the original creditor a couple of days ago. The thing is, we did have insurance that should've covered these two bills at the time, but for some reason the system didn't locate our insurance. They told her the debt had been sold in 2009 to a collection agency, but if she sent proof that we had insurance back then, they would send a letter to the collection agency with this information. But again, this was just 2 days ago.Is this just a coincidence? Was the collection removed because it's past SOL or because we called the original creditor (but didn't provide any proof). 

Don't get me wrong, this is definitely a good thing and we're both happy that the collection was removed. I'm just trying to figure how it happened. 

[RobertEG]

CR deletion by a debt collector can come about for several reasons.

First, they could simply have sold the debt, thus terminating their collectin authority.  While that alone would not have compelled them to deltete the reported collection, it is sometimes a business decision on their part so as to simply clear the decks, and not have to become involved in any future disputes over their reporting.

Second, they could simply have given up on collection based on imminent expiration of the SOL, and again simply wanted to clear the decks.

Third, they could have cancelled the debt entirely for business purposes, in which case if the debt was $600 or more, you will be getting a form 1099c from them, for which you will become oblitated to pay taxes to the IRS.

While you do not state that you filed an actual dispute under the CRA contesting the accuracy of their reporting, and deletion occured without resoltution of that dispute, if you have done so and deletion occured without their verification of the reporting, then any re-insertion of a collection by them or any other debt collector wourld first require the reporting party provide a pre-certification of the accuracy of the information.