Jane Pierce spent nine years struggling alongside her husband, Todd, as he fought cancer in his sinus cavity. The treatments were working. Then, in July 2009, Todd died in a fiery car crash. He was 46. That was the beginning of a whole new battle for Jane Pierce, this time with Todd’s life insurance company, MetLife Inc.
A state medical examiner and a sheriff in Rosebud County, Montana, concluded that Pierce’s death was an accident, caused when he lost control of his silver GMC pickup after passing a car on a two-lane road.
Their findings meant Jane was eligible to collect $224,000 on the accidental death insurance policy that Todd had through his employer, power producer PPL Corp. MetLife, however, refused to pay. The nation’s largest life insurer told Pierce on Dec. 8, 2009, that her husband had killed himself. The policy didn’t cover suicide, the insurer said, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its April issue.
“How dare they suggest such a thing,” says Pierce, 44, a physician assistant in Colstrip, a Montana mining and power production city of 2,346 people.
She says she’s insulted that the man who courageously battled his disease for a decade was accused by an insurance company of abandoning his wife and two sons -- one a U.S. Marine, the other a National Guardsman -- and giving up on his fight to live....
....Life insurers have found myriad ways to delay and deny paying death benefits to families, civil court cases across the U.S. show. Since 2008, federal judges have concluded that some insurers cheated survivors by twisting facts, fabricating excuses and ignoring autopsy findings in withholding death benefits.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-0 ... efits.html
Insurers decide
Insurers decide
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Insurers decide
I read this and thought about posting, but the article states that 99+% of claims are paid without problem. Then, all of the cases in the article where there was an initial denial ultimately ended up with the people successfully getting their benefits, and usually their attorney fees and interest. There is a statement that some people are not educated enough to figure out how to enforce their rights and it is possible that the insurance companies take advantage of them, but obviously those examples are hard to find.
Seems the import of the article is that because these are claims under group life insurance policies issued through employment, the insurers who behave badly or negligently cannot get hammered for punitive damages and compensatory damages like they can under the laws of some states. That was one of the original reasons for the federal law -- to provide a uniform method for employees to enforce their rights (not previously in place in some states) while not being so onerous as to discourage employers from providing employee benefit plans. Another non-news story.
Seems the import of the article is that because these are claims under group life insurance policies issued through employment, the insurers who behave badly or negligently cannot get hammered for punitive damages and compensatory damages like they can under the laws of some states. That was one of the original reasons for the federal law -- to provide a uniform method for employees to enforce their rights (not previously in place in some states) while not being so onerous as to discourage employers from providing employee benefit plans. Another non-news story.