Fallen Soldiers' Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Bloomberg

The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

-----

As time went on, she says, she tried to use one of the “checks” to buy a bed, and the salesman rejected it. That happened again this year, she says, when she went to a Target store to purchase a camera on Armed Forces Day, May 15.

-----

Lohman, a public health nurse who helps special-needs children, says she had always believed that her son’s life insurance funds were in a bank insured by the FDIC. That money -- like $28 billion in 1 million death-benefit accounts managed by insurers -- wasn’t actually sitting in a bank.

It was being held in Prudential’s general corporate account, earning investment income for the insurer. Prudential paid survivors like Lohman 1 percent interest in 2008 on their Alliance Accounts, while it earned a 4.8 percent return on its corporate funds, according to regulatory filings.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-28/fallen-soldiers-families-denied-cash-payout-as-life-insurers-boost-profit.html

---

Thieves!

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. K&R

[rfranklin]

3. The best thing is to write a check to your bank immediately...

and put it into your bank account. That trick is now standard practice for life insurance benefits because they get the "float" (basically free money) when beneficiaries leave it in their coffers.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

8. That's what I did with my dad's small policy.

I took one of their odd looking "checks", wrote it to myself and deposited it.

I don't have any problem with a financial services company wanting to keep assets in-house. The lack of FDIC insurance and disclosure of same is unconscionable.

[valerief]

4. Why would Prudential do that? Because we have no Congress to stop them!!! nt

[Joe Bacon]

39. Answer: They are greedy.

This is beyond disgusting. These criminal racketeers should have their assets seized!

[Oceansaway]

5. K&R...n/t

[zeemike]

6. I just love that euphemism "fallen soldiers"

What did they fall and break a leg?....no they are dead and they are dead soldiers.

[liberation]

12. Technically they are "killed" soldiers...

Indeed, the subversion of the English language by corporatespeak has surpassed anything Orwell could have dreamed of.

[saigon68]

35. They are dead---They died for NOTHING

[Joe Bacon]

41. Wrong, they died so Prudential could make a tidy profit

Nice racket, you make 5% on investments and pass only 1% to the families victims. Then you set up dozens of hoops for the victim's families to jump through to get funds that are rightfully theirs.

This has my blood boiling to the point that we should seize all insurance racketeers, reopen Alcatraz and put them there for the rest of their miserable lives!

[saigon68]

57. These peolple were preceded by the Cheneys of the World

[Gormy Cuss]

29. I'm no fan of euphemisms but this isn't one. It's a specific meaning of fall.

Just as a city lost to the other side in a battle is described as fallen -- it didn't trip over its toes or drop from a height. For an inanimate object like a city it means vanquished or conquered (the fall of Rome, for example.) For a human it means wounded or dead in a battle.

[readmoreoften]

33. Of course it's a euphemism. Euphemisms are often analogies. Fallen is analogous with dead.

And it sounds gentler and nobler than "our dead soldiers."

[Gormy Cuss]

37. So the Fall of Rome is a euphemistic way to describe it?

Is felling a tree a euphemism too?

[OnyxCollie]

7. Didn't something similar happen

after the earthquake in Haiti? IIRC, one of the telecomms was collecting donations through text messages. However, instead of turning over the donations immediately, the donations were sitting and earning interest for the telecomm.

[Old Vet]

10. This vile bullshit is equal to walmart

taking out life insurance on employees(unknown to them). So the widow gets 1% intrest and they get over 4% corporate intrest, Gotta be something criminal bout that. Thats just wrong on so many levels.

[Selena Harris]

18. You are more correct than you know-AIG sold

those dead janitor policies to WalMart.

And ProPublica did a HUGE story last year on the companies that insure private war contractors-by law the governmnet requires folks like Blackwater,etc to be underwritten.Those wounded contractors are having trouble getting their claims paid,too.

ACE,one of the insurers is run by Hank Greenberg's(CEO of AIG) son.

Will provide links.

Lawmakers criticize federal insurance program for wartime ...Jun 19, 2009 ... Lawmakers criticize federal insurance program for wartime contractors ... said he struggled to persuade AIG to approve treatment for ...
articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/19/nation/na-iraq-contractors19 - Cached


AIG, CNA, ACE Denials Add to Overburdened VA System « Overseas ...May 5, 2010 ... Thousands of Injured Contractors are being treated by the VA because AIG, CNA , ACE, refuse to accept their responsibility to provide ...
civiliancontractors.wordpress.com/.../aig-cna-ace-denials-add-to-overburdened-va-system/ - Cached

The following titles are from ProPublica site:

AIG, KBR and CNA Face New Questions About Insurance for Injured …
… Bermuda-based ACE Group, New Jersey-based Chubb Group and Switzerland's Zurich Financial Services also sell insurance to defense contractors to cover civilian …

Civilian Contractors by the Numbers
The system produced hundreds of millions of dollars in out-sized profits for the private insurance companies, of … ACE, $88,608,000, $64,487,000, $24,121,000, 27%. …

Injured War Zone Contractors Fight to Get Care From AIG and Other …
… ACE declined to comment. … He called the Defense Base Act program an "insurance- driven" system in which the Labor Department has little power.

[OnyxCollie]

28. Defense Base Act and AIG.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4241598#4242677
Contractors are required to provide workers’ compensation insurance, known as Defense Base Act (DBA).(61) The cost of this insurance is covered by the cost-plus feature of the LOGCAP contract. An audit conducted by the Defense Contract Audit Agency of KBR’s insurance premiums from 2003 to 2007 found that KBR paid $592 million.(62) An audit by the Army Audit Agency revealed that KBR’s costs for DBA for fiscal year 2005 amounted to $284 million, yet KBR’s insurance provider, American International Group (AIG), paid out only $73 million in claims.(63) The Army Audit Agency concluded “the cost of DBA insurance substantially exceeded the losses experienced by the LOGCAP contractor.”(64)

61 Grasso, V. (2009). Defense Logistical Support Contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan: Issues for Congress, p. 9
62 Ibid
63 Ibid, p. 10
64 Ibid

It would be cheaper for the government to either use a large pool and one provider like USAID does, or get rid of the middle man and do it themselves.

The DoD would rather use the Department of Labor-approved group of insurance providers, spreading out the pool and increasing the premiums. (Compared to USAID, which spends about $2.75 on premiums per $100 worth of salary, the DoD spends up to $16 per $100 of salary.)

This is added on to cost-plus LOGCAP contracts. KBR gets reimbursed for paying high premiums and AIG gets paid high premiums and pays little in return.

[dgibby]

62. There should be a law that no one,

not a person or a "corporate person" can take out an insurance policy on someone without the insured being aware of and agreeing to same, on in the case of minor children or the mentally incompetent, a parent or someone with power of attorney.

I, for one, would like to know if an abusive Ex or someone else without my best interests at heart is planning on collecting if I die.

[uppityperson]

16. IIRC, people didn't actually pay until they were billed during normal billing cycle,

then the telecom sent it on to American Red Cross Personally, after a disaster I would never donate to ARC as I have seen much waste with them but instead would donate to ICRC (International Red Cross). It seems ARC is actually managing to do better with Haiti than they did after Katrina.

Here are links explaining the difference between pledging and getting the money, as well as concern over what has happened to the money. "While $255 million was raised, only $80 million was spent or committed, leaving $175 million in donations that's neither spent nor committed to Haiti."
http://oaklandfocus.blogspot.com/2010/02/american-red-cross-must-explain-175.html
look for Feb 15, 2010 post
http://friends.macjournals.com/mattd/

In other words, the ARC has received $255 million for Haiti relief and recovery, but has only spent or committed to spend $80 million of that. That leaves a whopping $175 million that the ARC has received for Haiti relief that has not even been committed to projects in the country yet. That’s a metric shit-ton of money that will do a lot of good in Haiti if actually spent on recovery. As transportation infrastructure improves, it will become cheaper to get food and water into Haiti, so I’d guess $175 million is enough to provide basic food and water to tens of thousands of people for most of a year.

The $175 million question: why has ARC not “committed” this money to Haiti relief? Is it just because it’s not committed to specific projects? How long will it take to develop and fund these projects? Is this typical for other charities? Given ARC’s consistent past habits of collecting disaster relief money and spending a third or less of that money on relief for victims of that disaster, you have to wonder—and if the ARC truly is reformed and more transparent, they should answer them pre-emptively.

One more interesting note:

More than $32 million has been pledged through a record-breaking mobile giving effort in which people text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10. Thank you for enabling the American Red Cross to respond immediately and effectively as the needs on the ground evolve.

Note the verb changed: the money is not “received,” but “pledged.” That dovetails with news stories from last month noting that ARC won’t actually get the $10 from your text message until you have paid the cellphone bill for the period in which that message was billed, so anywhere from 30 to 90 days after you sent the text message. It’s possible that ARC was able to use those pledges to get no-cost credit for immediate relief efforts, or just deplete an existing fund with the assurance it would be rebuilt over a 90-day period, but it’s worth noting that ARC does not describe it as money they have. Still, 3.2 million people sending a $10 text message for help is an awesome thing that could very well change the way people around the world can individually respond to future disasters. It would be nice if the mobile carriers and credit card companies could work together to build a mechanism that would do this with much faster payment for just such emergencies. If it works out well, it could even become part of everyday commerce, provided it was secure enough.

July 9, 2010.
How Charities Are Helping Haiti: How Much They Raised and Spent
http://philanthropy.com/article/How-Charities-Are-Helping/66243/

American Red Cross
Washington
Amount raised: $464,000,000
Amount spent: $117,000,000
Where the money went: About half spent on food and emergency services; about a third for shelter; and the remainder toward activities such as cash assistance and water, sanitation, and health programs.

Difference $347,000,000.

[NavyMom]

9. They tried the same crap with me & my son policies, the SAME day I received the pckg

I wrote two checks, one for my account the other for my son's account but when they checks came for payment they tried EVERYTHING to keep those funds. I went to the CU president explained the issue and within a day ALL our funds were sitting in our accounts, the president of the CU called me after he confirmed the funds were received at the CU while they were transferring to the accounts.

It is all the insurance companies not just for veterans, when my mom passed away Travelers did this to my father but when we found out we made sure it was transferred into his personal account. They tried to tell him he could not transfer but after my brothers got through with them he also received ALL interest.

[burnsei sensei]

11. If this trend finds its way into the monetary

system we're really all screwed.
Bad faith will sink the systems of credit, monay and banking much faster than graft will.

[freebrew]

19. You forgot...

the :sarcasm: tag, right?

I mean, hasn't that already happened?

[burnsei sensei]

44. I think a collapse will have happened when one

of two realities prevails:

1. bread is 3 cents a loaf and few people can afford it.
or
2. bread is 50 dollars a loaf and few people can afford it.

I've heard scenarios supporting both.

[sakabatou]

13. Criminal

[Doremus]

14. Horrible. Unfortunately, this sort of thing has become the norm.

Doing the right thing for the sake of it has become extinct.

[Crowman1979]

15. Add this to the long list of reasons not to join the military.

[Canuckistanian]

50. I have no idea why people flock to the military

They must do it out of desperation, because scams like this are commonplace.

f it isn't "stop-loss", it's insurance. Or medical coverage at the VA. Or meals at the VA. Or transportation home. Or not retaining stateside jobs.

Or any one of a thousand things that have been foisted on troops fighting overseas.

[Tailormyst]

17. She needs to write a check to herself and deposit it in her bank

The money is still there.

[w4rma]

21. In her credit union. The heck with banks. Why don't we have a federal reserve credit union instead

of a federal reserve bank, anyway? Both work for their owners, but a federal credit union would be owned by the American citizens, where as the Federal Reserve Bank is owned by the most wealthy bankers in the world.

[Tailormyst]

25. I am all for a state or federal bank

[w4rma]

34. Why not a state or federal credit union? Or was that a typo? (nt)

[Tailormyst]

36. either one would frankly be better then what we have

[dgibby]

63. I belong to the Navy Federal Credit Union.

I've been a member since 1969, and you couldn't blast me out of there with dynamite! I love that place. Heck, my sister can join if I sponsor her, and she never served a day on AD. NFCU (and USAA) are the best.

[drm604]

20. Thank you for posting this.

If this happens to me, I'll immediately write a check for the full amount and deposit it into an FDIC insured account or accounts.

[Soylent Brice]

22. K&R

[newtothegame]

23. If the person isn't requesting it, I don't really see the problem here.

Now earning income on it AND denying the withdraw requests when made is TERRIBLE.

But as long as the person wants it to stay with your company, why would you NOT want to earn interest on it?

[northzax]

32. indeed

do you think your bank isn't making interest on your money as well? (or yes, even your credit union?)

first of all, $400,000 is an absolutely insane amount of cash for someone of probably relatively limited means and financial experience to have lying around. you are handing a huge sum of cash to someone with probably little to no knowledge and skill in how to invest, while they are in the middle of a serious emotional crisis (the sudden death of a loved one.) you're making them into potential marks for con artists. Look at your average lottery winner, and the long term success with that kind of money, and that's WITHOUT the long term emotional stressor of having the money be linked to a tragic death of a loved one. this is the last legacy of sacrifice for a soldier, enough money to keep their families going, to help them get a fresh start without them and to have a safety net moving forward. it can give them the financial space to grieve and make changes in their lives, if they want to, without the immediate financial worries. someone, whether the Army or the USO or the VA or someone, needs to provide professional, independent financial consulting for families in this situation (and maybe they do) I certainly wouldn't know what to do with a $400,000 check beyond depositing it into my bank (think the ATM would take it?) but I'd know where I'd turn to for advice, I have friends and family members I trust who do this sort of thing for a living who would at least find me the right person to talk to. but that's from my own personal connections.

[1monster]

24. Just finished reading the whole article. It's time to write, call, and e-mail our state and federal

representatives demanding that they stop this practice.

I'm sick of the insurance companies ripping us off. This kind of thing makes people think of pitch forks and torches. (Put it on the list: Must visit farm supply store...)

[democrank]

26. K & R

[grantcart]

27. Very Strange Article

Thirty paragraphs in they quote the insurance company as saying that they make it clear that they can have all of the money any time by writing the check. The beneficiary in this case made no effort to collect the money for six months so it seems logical that she may have missed the meaning of the original letter.

The reporter let the insurance company assertion stand without challenging it. It would have been useful to have the reporter actually quote what the insurance company says in their letter that they send out.

It is a stupid practice and the insurance companies should simply send a single check for the beneficiaries. Term Insurance only pays 4% of the time and a quick payment is the best advertising the insurance company has. All of the government insurance is handled by Met Life and they seem to have a knack for doing stupid things like this.

To make matters worse its not actually the insurance company's money. Life Insurance companies have these policies re insured so that they only hold about $ 50,000 liability on any single contract.

The issue of the safety of the money is a red herring however. During the worst bank runs and stock market crashes life insurance companies have always remained viable. There is in fact a FDIC like co insurance program at the state level to call on the assets of other insurance companies if one was insolvent.

[elleng]

30. GOOD that this is published in Bloomberg; will get attention, imo.

[sulphurdunn]

31. Qut complaining.

We should be thankful that Wall St. hasn't yet found a way to make a profit turning us into fertilizer or soap.

[DesertDiamond]

38. I'm going to barf. More ghoulish corruption, profiting on the sufferings of others.

[denbot]

40. K&R

Mother Fuckers..

[BrklynLiberal]

42. How is this even legal!!!!!???????? ???????????????

[Freetradesucks]

43. This article does not tell the whole story...

She was making 1% interest on liquid money that she could have asked for and received at any time. That is above the national average for a liquid FDIC insured money market account. Prudential made 4.8% on the money through investments that they very well could have lost money on, not FDIC insured or guaranteed.

She should have immediately requested the full amount of funds and either placed them in FDIC insured CD's or an investment product for a higher return.

Perhaps the answer here is offering free financial advice to people who are the recipients of the insurance.

Calling Prudential thieves in this case is not fair.

Here is a link to today's average rates for an FDIC insured money market account.

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/rate/brm_mma_hy_avg.asp

[DeSwiss]

45. The only PROBLEM with your "explanation" is that she didn't ASK to MAKE.....

...anything on the account. And the insurance company wasn't doing this for her benefit either. It was a ploy on their part to hang onto her CASH!!!

Gerry Goldsholle, the man who invented retained-asset accounts, says MetLife makes $100 million to $300 million a year from investment returns on the death benefits it holds. A former president of MetLife Marketing Corp., Goldsholle, 69, devised the accounts in 1984. He’s now a lawyer in private practice in Sausalito, California.

‘This Is Crazy’

Goldsholle says he pondered the billions of dollars of death-benefit proceeds the company paid out each year.

“I looked at this and said this is crazy,” says Goldsholle, who left the firm in 1991. “What are we doing to retain some of this money? It’s very expensive to bring money in the front door of an insurance company. You’re paying very large commissions and sales expenses.”

So he came up with a way for MetLife to hold onto death benefits.

“The company would win because we would make a nice spread on the money,” Goldsholle says, while customers would earn interest on their accounts. MetLife, he says, can earn 1 to 3 percentage points more from its investment income -- mostly from bonds -- than it pays out to survivors.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-28/fallen-soldiers-families-denied-cash-payout-as-life-insurers-boost-profit.html

So the article seems to explain things quite clearly as far as I can see. It's GREED, pure and simple. Greedy-ass insurance companies to be exact....

[Bolo Boffin]

46. Bingo.

And she also asked a couple of times to use the money when she wrote a couple of "checks," only to get denied. AND she only had a year to roll the benefits into a Roth IRA, but was never told.

Monsters. Ghouls profiting off the death of soldiers.

[Freetradesucks]

48. So..

She didn't ask to make anything on the money, yet was payed a higher than average interest rate, and that's greed? She could have and should have wrote one of those checks out to herself and deposited into her own bank account, where she would have earned less interest unless she tied it up in a CD or invested it herself with risk.

The fact that she thought it was some sort of checking account and attempted to write checks to Mr. Sleepy's and Target just shows the need for her to be educated, not maliciousness on the part of Prudential.

[DeSwiss]

51. Let me try to make it simple for you then:

It was an insurance policy not an investment decision she was making.

This company is an insurance company, not a bank.

As an insurance company they have NO CHARTER to operate as a bank and given this, they are not allowed to do banking activities in a state without being given that authority from the state and feds FIRST!!!!!!

That's the long and short of it. Are we clear so far?

This was slimey, rotten and fucked-up BIGTIME!

No amount of explanations nor perfume applied on your part, on behalf of these slimey insurance company bastards will cover over the stench of these acts.

They are taking advantage of people in the throes of emotional shock and loss. At a time in their lives when they can hardly think clearly nor make deliberate long-term decisions when a close family member has been violently taken from them.

This fucking SUCKS.

Goodbye.

[Freetradesucks]

52. You have absolutely no idea

what you are talking about. Let me explain it to you like you are three years old.

Insurance companies are regulated by the states they do business in.

The states set the minimum interest rate due to beneficiaries by insurance companies that do business in that state.

The insurance company was not operating as a bank.

They informed the beneficiary of the funds due to her, and immediately provided her with a means to access to those funds.

In the period before she requested the funds, the insurance company paid the beneficiary a higher than average interest rate on the money, which is standard practice.

The insurance company as a whole has it's assets invested in the free market in an attempt to earn as much as possible.

They try to make money, but sometimes they lose it from those investments.

The beneficiary is not a stockholder in the insurance company, and is not entitled to gains earned by the company or subject to losses incurred by the company.


I know I might have used some big words, but I'm sure you can google them to find out what they mean. I hope this helps.

[zipplewrath]

59. It was wrong

The magnitude of the "wrong" is a bit hyped, I'll agree. No one has lost money. However, the vast majority of the people involved in these accounts didn't know what was going on, and that includeds the regulators. That was almost assuredly the goal. They send a large package of information to grieving people who have little experience in the matters and then default to the arrangement that benefits themselves the most, and puts the money at risk for the beneficiary. In almost any other business, it'd probably be illegal.

[Freetradesucks]

65. So what is the solution?

This is a response to not only Zipplewrath, but all.....

What is the solution? Dropping a 400k check in the mail to this woman? What if she does not yet have an account set up at a bank? What if she is not currently staying at the address they have on record? What if the check gets lost in the mail? What about the interest due to her in the week it takes for the check to arrive in the mail?

Please, someone tell me what the better solution is to disperse these funds other than giving her a check that she can deposit on day one and take control, and if she doesn't she is still being payed an above average interest rate?

[quakerboy]

67. Interesting post

On the one hand, the hyperbolies of the article is hard for my sense of fairness. Given the details given, quotes like "“It’s a betrayal. It saddens me as an American that a company would stoop so low as to make a profit on the death of a soldier. Is there anything lower than that?” " kinda annoy me. I understand she is hurting, as would be any mother missing her son. But the company does not profit off the death of a soldier. Quite the opposite. If the soldier lives, they keep the principle and all the interest. Because the soldier died, they lose that principal, at some point, and are trying to hang on to the interest. Rather than profiting, they are attemting to minimise their losses. And if they could create personal shielding devices and hand them out to each soldier they insure, I would be willing to wager that they would do so, and quickly. I am pretty sure that having your insured live forever is the best way for a life insurance company to make money.


On the other hand, it is an underhanded way to deal with things, along the lines of insurance companies having approved auto repair shops that always seem to do the cheapest possible repair job.

Where it starts to look like a problem to me comes in right on one of the points you made:

"They try to make money, but sometimes they lose it from those investments.
The beneficiary is not a stockholder in the insurance company, and is not entitled to gains earned by the company or subject to losses incurred by the company."

If they lose money on investments they make, it is bad for the company. Stock holders are injured. However, if they lose money on money that they are holding for someone else, who is injured then? If they lose so much money they cannot make it good by taking a hit in their own books, what then?

The cynic in me says that given our current economic issues, and the unaddressed instabilities of our relatively unregulated capitol system, its not a matter of if, its a matter of when.

[Freetradesucks]

68. What happens is

"If they lose money on investments they make, it is bad for the company. Stock holders are injured. However, if they lose money on money that they are holding for someone else, who is injured then? If they lose so much money they cannot make it good by taking a hit in their own books, what then?"


What happens is the insurance company takes the loss, but the funds due to the beneficiary are not affected.

If an insurance company goes under and cannot pay the claims it has due, another insurance company picks them up and pays them. There is not a single case in the history of the United States that a valid claim has not been paid due to the company going under. The same with annuities, not a single annuity in the US has ever not been redeemed.

The same cannot be said for banks. Many people have lost money in banks.

If you could provide a link to the contrary I would be very interested to see it.

[Bolo Boffin]

47. It doesn't?? Where did you get your figures, then?

From the story, you say? Then the story told the GODDAMN FULL STORY.

Perhaps the answer here is insurance companies not looking for a way to make a buck off of dead soldiers and grief-stricken family members.

[Freetradesucks]

49. You would prefer if the insurance company

put claim funds into the variable account? What if that account lost 4.8% instead of earning? Do you not understand that this was an investment account that very easily could have lost money? Instead it was earmarked for a guaranteed interest rate of 1%, once again higher than the national average. She could have requested the money on day one and taken control, she didn't.

Once again I think that free advice to recipients is the answer here.

[Bolo Boffin]

53. So you admit (by not providing a second source) that your original title was BS

You said the article didn't tell the full story. Obviously it did.

What the insurance company should have done is INFORM the claimant about her options. No, cramming them all into fine print isn't informing someone. They glossed over her options while she was hammered with grief, kept her money, and made far more off of it than they paid her for the use of her money.

If, if, if. Get your head out of the land of hypotheticals. This person was used. As the article explained FULLY, the entire ghoulish scheme was cooked up by some greedy bastard crying over all the money flying out the door that they couldn't use any more.

Dear God, you're actually here defending the insurance company. This woman should be thankful for her 1% according to you, while staring at the insurance company's 4.8% and having missed the chance to roll the principal into a Roth IRA where it would have earned cash interest-free. You're actually here defending the practice!

[DFW]

54. I heard this on NPR today

I'm stateside for a few weeks. The NPR report said possible prosecutions were coming. It has been reported, and will, at the very least, be investigated for any possible illegalities.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

55. Every Corp has a piece of this game and that's why this

occupation is never going to end it will only be expanded. I'm deeply sorry for the families that have lost
their loved ones, but until they wake up to how they're being fucked and used as cannon fodder by these
psychopaths nothing will ever change.

[No Elephants]

56. Another thing the U.S. should self insure.

[warpigs]

60. Bingo - there is no insurance

In fact, it doesn't appear there is any "insurance" at all. Is Prudential taking a risk on soldiers lives, it doesn't appear so? They are just issuing checks to fallen soldiers families - but where are they getting the cash from to pay for this? The article doesn't explain that. It appears that Prudential is simply a "service" or middleman company that just sends these packets to the families. How are they getting compensated? Do they have a contract with the US Government. The article, although well written on the subject, leads a reader to ask many more questions.

Why can't the VA just simply issue the checks?

[pinboy3niner]

58. UPDATE--Just posted in LBN by Joanne98:

Veterans Agency to Probe Insurer Handling Soldiers’ Benefits
Source: Bloomberg

July 29 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating life insurance companies’ practice of putting veterans’ death benefits in corporate accounts and keeping most of the investment profits instead of paying the survivors.

“The possibility that life insurance companies are profiting inappropriately from these service members’ sacrifice is completely unacceptable,” Mike Walcoff, acting undersecretary for the agency’s Veterans Benefit Administration, said yesterday in a statement that announced the investigation.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4483769

[saigon68]

61. `

[elleng]

64. Story just on Ratigan show.

GOOD coverage.

[DeSwiss]

66. ****UPDATE****

NY AG Announces Probe Of Life Insurance Industry
NY AG: Probe Into Life Insurance Industry To Focus On Allegations Beneficiaries Were Misled

CBS News (AP)
Jul. 30, 2010


NEW YORK) - New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo says his office has opened a "major fraud investigation" into the life insurance industry. Cuomo announced Thursday that his office had served subpoenas on Prudential Financial, Inc. and MetLife, Inc. as part of the probe.

The attorney general's office is investigating whether insurers are profiting off of grieving families by placing funds from life insurance policies into potentially risky accounts that the companies control. The office says it appears companies are earning interest off the accounts, while paying out low yields to beneficiaries.

MetLife said it had not received the subpoena and therefore could not comment. Prudential Financial says it will fully cooperate with the attorney general's investigation.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/29/ap/national/main6726687.shtml