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How is this possible?
Dying of cancer, Thomas Amschwand did everything he was told to make sure his wife would collect on the life insurance policy he had through his employer.Employers use federal law to deny benefits
"He was obsessed with dotting every `i' and crossing every `t'," Melissa Amschwand-Bellinger recalled about her husband, who died in 2001 at age 30.
But Spherion Corp., the temporary staffing company where Amschwand worked, told Amschwand-Bellinger she would not receive any of the $426,000 in benefits she believed she was due. When she went to court, Spherion succeeded in getting her lawsuit thrown out. The Supreme Court on June 27 refused to review the case.
Amschwand-Bellinger received a refund of the few thousand dollars in insurance premiums she and her husband dutifully had paid. The total, she said, would not cover the costs of his funeral.
....
Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said at a recent hearing that before ERISA became law, employees clearly could sue for benefits in state courts.
The court rulings, said Leahy, D-Vt., have left people "more vulnerable than they were before the law was passed."
Spherion's decision to deny benefits to Amschwand-Bellinger turned on an odd set of facts. Spherion, which employs about 300,000 people, switched insurers after Thomas Amschwand was diagnosed with a rare form of heart cancer. The new policy did not take effect until an employee worked one full day. Spherion never informed Amschwand of the requirement.
This makes no sense and is entirely frightening. The thought that your employer can change insurers, and in so doing, remove your ability to benefit from insurance you are paying for.
I'm with Leahy on this one. If the employee qualified under the old plan he should also qualify him under the new plan. Telling him he is all set when he has to come in for a day is wrong and the blame is with the employer.
I can understand blocking frivolous lawsuits against insurance companies but all they are looking for is to receive the benefit they paid the premiums for. I'd be willing to bet that if you cancelled an insurance policy and asked for your premiums back you would be laughed at.
More companies should be unionized.
Comments
I honestly only have life insurance because it's free. I might consider it had I dependents, but I have them not.
I also plan to go into as much debt as possible before kicking the bucket.
Keep in mind that I am married and that I plan to have kid - so I have a different perspective. I believe that there are limits on this, and that there are some heavy "gift taxes" that apply. Also, it is difficult to transfer large assets from one person to another at a reasonable tax rate without both taking a blow.
Here is a brief exposition on the assignment of debt in a probate estate. There are lots and lots of variations based on type of property, type of debt, and the relation of the beneficiary.
At the very least we should bring back the inheritance tax that Bush got rid of.
Why should the transfer of assets upon ones death be subject to taxes?
Last time I checked $10,000 was the limit on gifts per year. I tried talking my mother-in-law into putting that much money into a college fund "gift" for my daughter each year but no luck. Then again her mother lived well into her 90's so she will probably also live a long time too. (She is just shy of 70.)
If anything over $1 million is subject to the death tax I know some members of my family would be subject to it. My mother-in-law's estate is worth well over that. Her real estate property alone is worth over $1 million. When you add in her stocks and bonds it is considerably higher (though not as high as it was a few years ago).
2. The exclusion this year is $2 million. No estate less than that will have any estate tax assessed against it. Next year it will be $3.5 million. I simply don't believe that you have any connection whatsoever to an estate that large. The exemption you're talking about would occur after a year in which no tax was assessed against anyone. Then the exemption would go back up to $1 million. I don't believe that would be the final limit on the exemption.
Hungry Joe: the wealth of one's relatives is irrelevant to one's own financial status. I am surrounded by millionaires but I am not one (yet).
Sure, age discrimination in general is bad. However, when lending money to someone, age is actually a consideration that matters a great deal. If someone is very old, that factors into their ability to repay what they borrow. It's not ok to discriminate against physically disabled people, but if I am hiring construction workers, being in a wheelchair is going to make you less qualified for the job. If I run a BBQ restaurant where half the menu is ribs, I can refuse to hire religious people who avoid the pigs. If someone is deaf, it's not discrimination if I don't hire them for a job taking dictation. It is discrimination if I don't hire a deaf person to be a writer (and they are otherwise the most qualified candidate).
Insurance companies, as much as I don't like them, have the right idea. The actuaries take into account all statistically significant factors, and leave out all insignificant factors, when calculating premiums. When you are old, health, life, and auto insurance premiums all go up. It's just common sense.
It's patently unfair to force someone to lend their money to someone who is unlikely to pay it back.