In the past 18 months, California’s five largest insurers paid almost $19 million in fines for marooning policyholders who had fallen ill. That includes a $1 million fine against Health Net, which admitted offering bonuses to employees for finding reasons to cancel policies, according to company documents released in court.The Washington Post, September 8, 2009

Reuters, March 17, 2010 – South Carolina Supreme Court upheld verdict in favor of a college freshman who learned he had HIV after purchasing health insurance from Fortis, now known as Assurant Health. Assurant denied his health insurance claim and cancelled his policy after learning of the diagnosis, based on incorrect information, yet refused to investigate the situation. Discovery in the lawsuit that resulted in the $10 Million award revealed the company had a computer program that automatically selected insured individuals with recent HIV diagnosis for fraud investigation and a basis for cancellation was developed, often based on incomplete, incorrect, or lack of information.

“This is probably the most egregious of examples of health insurers using their power and their resources to deny benefits to people who are most in need of care,” said Gerald Kominski, associate director of the Center for Health Policy Research at the University of California at Los Angeles. “It’s really a horrendous activity on the part of the insurers.” Washington Post , September 8, 2009

“The bottom line is that insurance companies make money when they don’t pay claims. They’ll do anything to avoid paying, because if they wait long enough, they know the policyholders will die.” Mary Beth Senkewicz, former senior executive at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

“Policyholders have lodged thousands of complaints against the major long-term-care insurers. New York Times, March 26, 2007

Conseco and Bankers Life “made it so hard to make a claim that people either died or gave up.” Betty J. Hobel, a former Bankers Life agent in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.” “When someone is 70 or 80 years old, how many times are they going to try before they just give up?”

In depositions and interviews, current and former employees at Conseco, Bankers Life and Penn Treaty described business practices that denied or delayed policyholders’ claims for seemingly trivial reasons. Employees said they had been prohibited from making phone calls to policyholders and that claims had been abandoned without informing policyholders. Such tactics, advocates for the elderly say, are becoming common throughout the industry. New York Times, March 26, 2007

We are particularly interested in assisting you if you have been denied a long-term care insurance claim by Allianz, Genworth Financial, CNA, John Hancock, MetLife, Mutual of Omaha, or Prudential.

Contact a denied insurance claim litigation attorney now.