Life Insurance Lawyer North Dakota
Our North Dakota life insurance lawyers are here to help. We serve all states. Free consultation. No fee unless settlement.
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Check for any errors or omissions: Review the policy documents and any correspondence with the insurer to ensure that there were no errors or omissions that contributed to the policy lapse. If there were, it may be possible to challenge the insurer's decision to deny the claim.
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Review the policy terms: Review the terms of the policy to ensure that the insurer followed all of the procedures required by the policy when cancelling the policy for non-payment of premiums. If the insurer failed to follow these procedures, it may be possible to challenge the denial of the claim.
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Check for automatic premium loans: Some life insurance policies have a feature called automatic premium loans, which allows the insurer to borrow from the policy's cash value to pay the premiums if the policyholder fails to make a payment. If this feature was included in the policy and was not activated, it may be possible to argue that the policy should not have lapsed.
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Show evidence of hardship: If the policyholder failed to pay the premiums due to financial hardship, it may be possible to argue that the insurer should have made accommodations to keep the policy in force.
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Argue that the insurer did not provide adequate notice: Insurers are typically required to provide notice to the policyholder before cancelling a policy for non-payment of premiums. If the insurer failed to provide adequate notice, it may be possible to challenge the denial of the claim.
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Argue that the policyholder did not receive the notice: If the insurer claims to have sent notice to the policyholder but the policyholder did not receive it, it may be possible to challenge the denial of the claim.
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Argue that the policyholder was incapacitated: If the policyholder was incapacitated due to illness or injury and was unable to pay the premiums, it may be possible to argue that the insurer should have made accommodations to keep the policy in force.
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Argue that the policy was fraudulently induced: If the policyholder was induced to purchase the policy under false pretenses, it may be possible to argue that the policy should not have lapsed.
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Argue that the insurer waived the premium payment: If the insurer accepted late premium payments in the past without cancelling the policy, it may be possible to argue that the insurer waived its right to cancel the policy for non-payment of premiums.
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Seek legal advice: If you have been denied a life insurance claim due to policy lapse, it's important to seek the advice of an experienced insurance lawyer who can review your case and help you determine the best course of action to challenge the denial.
Call us at 800-330-2274 for a free consultation.
Life Insurance Beneficiary Rules and Disputes North Dakota
2023-2024 Life Insurance Claims in North Dakota Recently Settled
- Nationwide coronavirus death denied $202,000.00
- Bestow Life chronic illness exclusion $56,000.00
- MassMutual POA beneficiary change $104,000.00
- Country Financial Life lapse of policy $30,000.00
- Globe Life COVID-19 death denial $107,000.00
- Accidental Death & Dismemberment Alcohol $938,000.00
- CMFG Life material misrepresentation $58,000.00
- Ladder Life intoxication exclusion won $75,000.00
- RiverSource lapsed the policy rejection $104,000.00
- Army Life change of beneficiary form $402,145.00
- Wilton Life cancer in the medical records $60,000.00
- OneAmerica Life suicide exclusion hanging $110,000.00
- Mass shooting North Dakota exclusion $205,000.00
- Globe misrepresentation application $102,400.00
- American General felony exclusion $416,000.00
- Banner prescription drug exclusion denial $263,000.00
- Prudential interpleader lawsuit beneficiaries $477,000.00
- North Dakota denied life insurance claim $1,118,000.00
- AIG accidental death and dismemberment $427,000.00
- SGLI beneficiary change form issue $400,000.00
- Denied life insurance claim North Dakota $458,000.00
- Gerber autoerotic asphyxiation death $219,000.00
- ERISA insufficient documents supporting claim $143,000.00
- North Dakota divorce and life insurance $269,000.00
- Transamerica bad faith life insurance claim $150,000.00
- North Dakota denied AD&D claim $755,300.00
Interpleader Lawyer North Dakota
North Dakota Life Insurance Law
One of the easiest ways to obtain life insurance is to get a policy under a group plan offered by your employer. Many times, when employers offer these group plans to employees as a benefit of employment, the employer itself will pay all premiums. In other cases, the employee must pay her own premiums. Even in those cases, however, group plans typically offer much more reasonable premiums than individual life insurance policies.
Sounds like a win-win all the way around, right? Well, most of the time group plans are a great thing. One significant drawback, however, is that responsibility for maintaining the plan lies within the hands of your employer’s human resources department. When they drop the ball, it can create disastrous consequences for policyholders and their intended life insurance beneficiaries.
As attorneys who specialize in the wrongful denial of life insurance claims, we’ve seen many cases where an employer’s missteps cause problems with employee policies. This article explains some of the more common issues that arise in this context.
No life insurance policy provided
Let’s face it, most people never read the fine print of any insurance policy, let alone a life insurance policy. Nonetheless, policy language becomes terribly important whenever a policyholder dies. At that point, of course, the policy beneficiary submits a claim to the insurer for payment of policy benefits. All too often, the response to that claim is a flat-out denial based on specific policy language. When employees never receive copies of their policy, their beneficiaries have no basis for assessing the propriety of those denials.
In one rather extreme case, a policy beneficiary submitted a claim when her insured husband passed away. The claim was rejected because, according to the insurance company, the husband never made a beneficiary designation. The wife knew he did, however, because she had helped him fill out the policy application and even dropped that application off to his employer’s human resources department when he was out of town. It turned out the HR professionals took steps to obtain the policy, but never submitted the policyholder’s personalized application forms that contained his designation.
To add insult to injury, the couple never received a copy of policy documents from the HR department that would have allowed them to discover the mistake on their own. This caused a great delay in payment of this woman’s perfectly valid claim.
Waiver of premiums form not submitted
In most cases, group life insurance plans are only available to “active” employees. This means that if there is a period of unemployment, the employee’s ability to participate in the plan typically terminates. There is an exception to that general rule, however.
If an employee becomes inactive due to a long-term disability but plans to return to work, the human resources department can provide the life insurer with a “waiver of premium form.” Without going into all the legal intricacies regarding that form, suffice it to say it allows the life insurance policy to remain intact even though the employee is away from work for an extended period of time.
Far too many times, however, HR personnel simply forget to send the life insurance company the waiver of premium form when an employee goes out on disability. As a result, that employee can find himself without a life insurance policy in place when he may be in the greatest need for that policy. Unfortunately, most employees don’t even know about the existence of this form, thus they are unlikely to request that HR fulfill its obligation in turning it in to the insurer.
Unfortunately, people sometimes die as a result of those disabilities. Their life insurance beneficiaries then get the shock of their lives when they realize the employer has let their policy lapse in this fashion. This can result in outright denial of claims or severe delays in claim processing if the beneficiary can prove the lapse occurred through the fault of the employer.
Lapsed life insurance policy due to non-payment
Another situation we’ve seen through the years is where the employer falls on tough times and simply stops paying life insurance policy premiums without informing the employees that they are doing so. Although most life insurance policies offer a “grace period” during which premiums can be brought to current, if an employee is in the dark about the employer’s failure, she is unlikely to do anything to remedy the premium deficiency.
Although HR departments are charged with notifying employees of any significant changes to their employment benefits, things don’t always happen the way they’re supposed to. Indeed, this very scenario plagued a young family out of California a few years back.
A man named Dan was employed by an electricity generator plant. Unbeknownst to the plant’s employees, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. As a result, executives did everything they could to cut costs, including instructing the HR department to cease paying employee premiums on group life insurance plans. Dan died after the plan had lapsed. When his wife submitted a claim under his policy, she was surprised and saddened to learn Dan’s policy had been terminated.
What each of these scenarios has in common is that: (a) coverage issues arose through no fault of the policyholder; (b) the legal issues are complicated in that they involve both the insurance company and the employer; and (c) the life insurance company denied otherwise valid claims by beneficiaries who had no idea they were without coverage. Imagine how devastating that would be for a family that has just lost its main wage earner.
Unfortunately, we see cases like these far too often. The good news is that there are legal remedies available in most cases where an employer’s HR department is solely at fault for the policy issues. While the legal maneuvering can be tricky, it’s what our firm does day in and day out.
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If you’ve had life insurance coverage denied based on an issue with the policyholder’s employer, call us today. We would be happy to sort through the problem and get you the payout that was intended for you.