Leslie Scism

speaker

504 appearances 9 recordings 1 series first heard Sep 2017 last heard May 2023

Leslie Scism’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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WSJ Your Money Briefing · How Paperwork Errors Cost Families Life-Insurance Payouts · 24 May 2023 podcast

The employer had been deducting the premium amounts from their paychecks and forwarding that amount to the insurance company, but Prudential had never verified that all these people had been approved for their life insurance. matched

So when the death claims came in, Prudential looked in its files and said, we never approved these people for their life insurance, so we have to deny the claim. matched

We're talking group life insurance that is provided by employers as a benefit. matched

There's usually a basic amount of life insurance, a form of term life insurance. matched

It's usually one or two times the employee's salary. matched

then the employer makes available what's called supplemental life insurance, which is an amount of insurance above the basic amount. matched

Typically, employees pay for some or all of this supplemental life insurance, and some of it may require going through a qualification process. matched

Some employers dropped the ball and did not provide the health form for their employees to fill out for this supplemental amount of coverage. matched

But the employers tally up how much premium they owe the insurance company from these workers. matched

The employers went ahead and put down these workers as paying for their supplemental insurance fees. matched

though the insurance companies were never provided the forms for these people. matched

So the insurance companies had never approved it. matched

However, there was no system of talking between these employers and the insurance companies as to which specific employees had filled out these forms. matched

The insurance companies were receiving aggregated premium, you know, a lump sum of premium from all of the workers who were paying for their insurance. matched

But there wasn't a system for them to distinguish which people had been properly approved for their insurance. matched

The Labor Department says it determined that Prudential had denied more than 200 death benefit claims in recent years, totaling as much as $7 million. matched

In instances where people had been paying for their insurance, the employer had been deducting the premium amounts from their paychecks and forwarding that amount to the insurance company. matched

But Prudential had never verified that all these people had been approved for their life insurance. matched

So when the death claims came in, Prudential looked in its files and said, we never approved these people for their life insurance, for their supplemental life insurance. matched

So we have to deny the claim. matched

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