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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.
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