Life insurance policyholders sometimes have mixed emotions when they think about the financial safeguards they have put into place for loved ones.
On the one hand, contemplating those protections promotes a feeling of security and empowerment regarding the future. On the other hand this thought can occasionally arise: What if my insurer refuses to pay the claim in the wake of my passing?
Insurance company representatives routinely provide would-be customers with assurances that such a scenario will never occur.
Yet it does, and often enough that such a story does not seem unique or even remote when the media reports it.
We fight life insurance denials at the national ERISA Law Center. We note on our pro-claimant website that it is understandably “a massive shock when an insurance company denies a survivor’s claim for a life insurance payment.”
As reported by one national news outlet, that shock was on display for many policyholders over past months and years as they confronted unexpected claim denials or underpayments – as well as delay tactics – from one national insurer.
Gerber Life Insurance Company just settled a number of such cases with one state’s insurance department, being slapped with $3.6 million earmarked toward claimants’ restitution and as a civil penalty, respectively.
The insurer’s alleged wrongdoings were both myriad and diverse. Among other things, the company engaged in actions like the following:
- Demanding irrelevant information resulting in delayed payments
- Not accepting evidence of a biological connection between parents and children
- Delaying payment to the point where claimants needed to sue for recovery
- Engaging in unlawful tactics aimed at wrongly influencing policy settlements
The ERISA Law Center is intimately familiar with such insurer strategies and attempts to avoid paying life insurance claims. The ERISA Law Center welcomes contacts to the firm and the opportunity to provide candid counsel and diligent representation in a life insurance denial/delay matter.