My 90 year old mother passed away in early October. She suffered from dementia, which ultimately led to many physical ailments, was unable to walk or care for herself, spent the last couple of years in a memory care facility, and the last long period of her life on Hospice. She had a great life for the 87ish years before that and was ready to go when it happened. As the person who managed literally everything for her for he last 6 years, I miss her greatly, but also have to admit it has been somewhat a relief.
She had a Life Insurance Policy that among other things she expected to pay for her final arrangements. Soon after her death, I contacted the Life Insurance Company and was told they had cancelled the policy for non-payment of premiums, and refused to speak with me further once they understood she had passed away, as her passing terminated my power of attorney, and they were only required to speak with the policy owner…
They claimed they had not received payments for January and February of 2022, and had terminated the policy after the contractual 60 day waiting period on 3/15/2022. I checked with the bank, and the automatic payments which I had setup with the bank and the insurance company, were paid in Jan and Feb, but the company stopped taking them in March. They had never notified me in any fashion, even through the policy contact details had been changed to my address, etc., years earlier.
As I had funeral, burial, Family Trust, and home sale responsibilities, I initiated a complaint with the Utah Insurance Department, and put it on the back burner.
I had a call from a representative of the Dept in late January, saying she had contacted the insurance company with a list of the state laws and regulations they had violated in my case and requested they pay the policy… They contacted her back, offering to pay the death benefit, minus dramatically increased premium payments since 2022.
She told them that was not acceptable, suggested an alternative, which she never outlined for me, and gave them a week to respond. A week later they agreed to pay the full death benefit, interest on the benefit since her passing, a significant penalty, and as the penalty and interested would be taxable, grossed up the payment amount to include taxes.
I’ve submitted the claim documents and am expecting a check to be sent overnight within a few days.
I must say, I was not certain of what to expect from the state office when I filed the claim. In the back of my mind I was prepared to have the complaint result in no resolution, and sort of expected to be forced to hire an attorney, and deal with court related timeframes to resolve this matter.
Instead, I’m posting this here in order to share with all of you what a wonder service this department provided for me, for my siblings, and for my mother’s estate…
Thank God for the Utah Insurance Department and the representative who solved my problem for me!
Finally, I’ve posted this under the Miscellaneous category and will refer to it and follow up with some political comments in another thread in a political category.