Should Insurance Companies Profit Off Dead Soldiers?

Originally posted by TeslaandLyne
war dead insurance scam

Some of the hit summaries:

# Dead Vets' Families Accuse Insurer of $100 Million Scam ... Jul 31, 2010 ... WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange on the 'War Logs': 'I Enjoy Crushing Bastards' · Dead Vets' Families Accuse Insurer of $100 Million Scam ... www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/31-1 - Cached

# Wall Street's Dead Soldier Problem | Mother Jones Jul 30, 2010 ... Insurance corporations have a new big-money scheme, and new marks: the survivors of America's war dead. ... families are particularly desirable targets for financial and insurance scams, since they're often young, ... motherjones.com/.../military-life-insurance-scam-fraud-prudential-metlife - Cached

# FOXNews.com - Ex-LA mortuary worker guilty of insurance fraud that ... Aug 2, 2010 ... Ex-LA mortuary worker guilty of insurance fraud that included cremating mannequin ... Textile Workers Assist in War Effort. August 02, 2010Mon, ... Is Bill Cosby Dead? No, But He'll Humor the Rumor to Push His iPhone App ... www.foxnews.com/.../ex-la-mortuary-worker-guilty-insurance-fraud-included-cremating-mannequin-cow/

There is a whole lot going on in insurance.
I always figure you buy the insurance and no one else knows
about it and ends up going to no one but the insurance company.
How many times does that happen.

Never, actually.

All policies must list a beneficiary to be valid. If there is no surviving beneficiary then it sits in an interest bearing account for 4 years for someone to make claim to it. If no one makes claim to it, it is donated to official charities.

Of course, we're talking about life insurance.

Just because you don't understand something, doesn't make it evil. All these articles do is prey on your fear and ignorance on the subject.

MSNBC is breaking news now on this topic:

The U.S. Veterans Affairs Dept. and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners say they are reviewing military life insurance arrangements.

"It's disgraceful on the part of insurance companies," Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), a onetime prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "We'll obviously have to be looking into it."

Under scrutiny are so-called retained-asset accounts. More than 100 carriers use the accounts to earn income on $28 billion owed to beneficiaries. New York-based MetLife, the biggest U.S. life insurer, retains about $10 billion and was among the carriers subpoenaed by Andrew Cuomo, the New York Attorney General.

Many life insurance companies suggest to beneficiaries that as an alternative to taking a lump-sum payment of death benefits, they leave the bulk of the policy proceeds with the carriers.

The accounts were set up for beneficiaries such as Cindy Lohman of Great Mills, Md. Her 24-year-old son had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. Prudential and the other insurers give the recipients limited checkbook-like access to the funds and pay modest interest.

Meanwhile, the carriers can invest the money, obtaining a far higher return than what they offer to beneficiaries. Families often receive misleading guarantees about the safety of the accounts, which are held in corporate coffers, not in federally insured banks, Bloomberg Markets found.

A half-dozen members of President Barack Obama's Cabinet sit on an advisory council overseeing life insurance for military service-members. The last time the council met, in November, none of the Cabinet members attended the annual meeting. Aides accustomed to handling the issue for their agencies go as representatives.

I've following anything Wikileaks related on ATS. Recently, someone posted that the misterious encrypted "insurance" file may contain information implicating the US government with insurance fraud and collecting on lost troops lives.

As a USMC combat veteran, I dismissed this post as I am very well familiar with SGLI - At least I thought I was until I read this MSNBC article.

Source

reply to post by metro


Star for you, Metro. I was an insurance agent for over 20 years, including life insurance. As you said, this thread and story are full of half-truths and sensationalism. I'm debating whether it's even worth my time to try and explain things. Unfortunately, too often minds are made up on a fraction of the facts and any additional data that contradicts what is "known" is simply ignored. Which leads to my lack of desire to waste my time.

I might be cynical, but from what I've read and understand about insurance it's nothing but a huge rorts. So it doesn't suprise me in the least the reports I've heard about dead peasants insurance etc. IMO insurance and superannuation companies are there solely to make money off your money--not unlike banksters!--and to give jobs to those who would otherwise be unemployed. Look at it this way, they take your money and invest it in schemes of their choosing and tell you you're not allowed to have it until you reach a certain age like 70 (if you're lucky to even reach that age!) all the while they're collecting their fees and the percentage of the interest and turning it into a nice salary for themselves; as if you're not mature enough to invest your own money. I mean come on?!