As reported in the May 7 article of the Record-Bee the State of California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones and State Controller John Chang allege that Metlife has failed to pay insurance policy death benefits to known beneficiaries even after being notified of the deaths of insured persons.
Metlife is alleged to have been doing this for about two decades. That”s 20 years and amounts to about $1.2 billion in benefit expenditures the company has allegedly converted to themselves. They ?meticulously” kept the policy alive for the deceased after his death by using the cash value of the policy to pay the premiums to themselves and apparently did not seek out the beneficiary, which may have been the state. When that cash value was devoured by them they simply cancelled the insurance contract and closed the case. Aw gee, we lost another customer.
If true, what on earth has developed such greed and created such lack of business integrity on the part of Metlife and the people responsible for properly concluding death benefit payments? In most cases the premium amounts paid exceeded the cost of the death benefit payout. It is almost impossible today to not know when someone dies especially when Metlife learned of the death of the insured through “Death Master,” a report prepared and provided to Metlife by the Social Security Administration. Someone is either not looking or reading this important document of fact needed by them to conduct business, or they have chosen not to read it or to do anything positive about it. My God, I hope this isn”t true. But, 20 years? You think someone would have noticed.
Additionally, if premiums stop coming in from the insured or the cash value is used to keep the policy current is that not an indication that something is wrong and would require someone to ask why? With the invention of computers there is absolutely no excuse for not making an inquiry even if addresses of the deceased or named beneficiary may be wrong in the Metlife files or any files. All one needs to do is ?Google” the name and you will most likely find current data in about five seconds.
It will be interesting to hear the ?verdict” and I hope that the Record-Bee stays with this allegation and report the hearings findings as soon as it is known.
Joe Totorica
Kelseyville
