And from the NYT and the the offices of several state Attorney Generals, here is story detailing yet another example of Wall Street businesses failing to act in good faith. The story also illustrates why most (not all) insurance companies have lousy reputations. In short, numerous life insurers (e.g Met Life) fail to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars even when they know or are using data which shows: 1) the person is dead, and 2) the company issued a policy covering that life.
How could they fail to pay out? Met Life and others managed to comfort themselves that it’s legal to just sit back and ignore the facts they have or use, so long as no one made a claim on the policy. In other words, the plan is to make extra money by taking advantage of policyholders losing track of records and insurance policies. Worse yet, they used the same death data n reverse to save money – they checked death records to make sure they stopped sending out disability payments when a person died.
So, now what to think about the message: Get Met, It Pays.