Life Insurance Benefits
Morgan & Morgan Insurance Recovery Group life insurance benefits attorneys pursue claims against employers that didn’t provide fired or laid off employees the proper notice, opportunity, and instructions to secure their life insurance, resulting in lapsed coverage and the loss of valuable and crucial insurance policy payouts.
As of September 2017, more than 100 million Americans had life insurance coverage provided by their employer. Getting life insurance through your employer is often cheaper than purchasing it on your own, but what if you leave your job or get fired? Then you’re back to square one, and have to go out and get that insurance yourself.
But crucially, if the new individual acts within 30 days, they can convert their group life insurance policy (provided by the employer) into an individual policy without providing evidence of insurability. This means that the insurance company cannot ask you to submit to new medical testing to prove that you are worthy of coverage. They must convert your same policy, no questions asked. This is extremely important for employees suffering from an illness or disability, especially when that condition is the thing that is causing them to be laid off or fired.
If they were forced to go through new medical testing, it would be impossible for them to keep their same or remotely similar life insurance as an individual. Employers are required by law to provide notice and instruction to the employees they lay off or fire that they have 30 days to convert their policy, or risk losing it forever.
But what happens if they fail to do so?
An Avoidable Financial Catastrophe
Our attorneys have seen something like the following tragic scenario play out far too often:
An employee is stricken with a severe illness, like chronic or recurrent pneumonia. This results in their inability to continue working, so they are fired. The employer fails to give the former employee and their family enough notice and proper instructions on how to convert their group life insurance policy into an individual policy; the 30 days pass, and the policy is lost. Because the former employee is now suffering from a severe illness, no insurance company is willing to give them a new policy. The employee dies, and their family is left without the life insurance payout that was the bedrock of their financial emergency planning.
In cases like these, the negligence of the employer has caused a serious financial loss that didn’t have to happen. Our lawyers work to hold these employers accountable, and to secure the financial future of their families or other beneficiaries left behind.
Case Types
Delayed Life Insurance Claims
If your life insurance company is taking weeks or months to process your claim, or keeps asking you for medical records or other documentation that they already have or that shouldn’t be relevant, call us right away. You may be the victim of a cynical process designed to get you to give up on your claim.
The vast majority of life insurance claims are paid in full within weeks of the insurer getting a certified copy of the death certificate. Some cases may require more investigation or paperwork than others, and that could explain a delay. It’s also possible, however, that the insurance company really doesn’t want to pay this claim, and is hoping that if they delay or harass you enough, that you’ll give up.
Don’t give in. In some cases, just hearing that the beneficiary has hired an attorney is enough to get the insurer to pay up, and in others, we’ll be able to identify the methods being used and know how to fight back. Call today.
ERISA Denied Life Insurance
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a law that sets the terms for the legal relationship between insurance companies and the policyholders of non-government employer-provided insurance policies, including life, health, disability, and retirement.
One of the areas the law covers that is most important to us is what happens if a life insurance claim is denied. ERISA lays out a strict appeals process and a set of laws that cover any eventual lawsuit. The tricky part is, if these steps aren’t followed properly by the beneficiary, under the law they could lose their right to appeal or sue forever.
Therefore, if your (ERISA-covered) life insurance claim was denied, it’s extremely important that you have your case reviewed by an attorney before taking any further steps. Not sure if ERISA laws apply to your case? Call us today and we’ll review your case for free and let you know.
Life Insurance Lapse
“We won’t pay your claim because the premiums weren’t being paid” seems like a straight-forward, iron-clad basis for rejecting a claim. However, it’s often not so simple.
Insurance policies are complex documents, and policyholders and beneficiaries won’t always have the expertise required to fully understand it. This can lead to insurance companies taking advantage of the situation by claiming that some provision or another Supports their rejection. If the lapse in premium even occurred, it is very possible that the insurance company themselves are the ones responsible for it under the law. So don’t take their word for it. Call us today for a free case review.
Justice In Reach For All
If a parent, spouse, sibling, or other individual named you as a beneficiary in a life insurance policy that was allowed to lapse due to employer negligence, you may have the right to sue that employer after that person’s death.
You may be entitled to the full value of the lapsed life insurance policy. For example, in June 2017 our attorneys secured a full $750,000 payout that had been promised in the original policy for a Pennsylvania family. The employer had not given their former employee a chance to prevent it from lapsing, and we were able to hold them accountable for it.
Our Life Insurance Benefits attorneys are available 24/7 to evaluate your case, and they don’t charge a penny unless and until they win for you. No one deserves to lose such crucial life insurance coverage just because their former employee couldn’t get their act together.
Call today, and find out what your options are. We fight for the people, and we want to fight for you too.
