Accidental Death Becomes Suicide When Insurers Don't Pay

[Blue_Tires]

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.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-01/accidental-death-becomes-suicide-when-insurers-dodge-paying-life-benefits.html?nstrack=sid:5068832|met:300|cat:0|order:1
==========================
==========================

She eventually got the policy paid after going to court...

[rfranklin]

1. That amounts to fraud...

They usually get away with it. That's why they don't want oversight, regulation or lawsuits available to the customer.

[mistertrickster]

2. Great. And let me guess, only one-third of it went to the lawyers . . .

[EC]

3. I went through this with my husband

and whatever the official death certificate states with the medical examiner is what they have to abide by. This is fraud.

[KamaAina]

7. Aside: Physician-assisted suicide laws tell the ME to put the underlying illness as cause of death

rather than suicide, for that very reason.

[ThomCat]

4. Insurance companies search for any excuse,

no matter how minor or implausible, to deny benefits.

If they find an excuse, they will seize it and use it for all it's worth. Their profits come from taking your money and giving you nothing in return. Always remember that.

Their entire business model is based on screwing you over. They don't make any money if they are honest and ethical, and they are in the business to make as much money as possible.

The industry's internal culture is vicious, and requires doing whatever it takes to maximize the amount of money they bring in and keep. Talk to people who work in any of the big, profitable insurance companies around any of the executives. Screwing people is a way of life. It's even a celebrated way of life. :(

[Blue_Tires]

5. very true n/t

[Blue_Tires]

6. ttt