News & Resources

We are continuing our discussion of a federal lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Prudential. The insureds in the suit were veterans of the Armed Forces who committed suicice. Their families believe their suicides were the result of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They also believe that the VA and Prudential should have paid on the veterans’ life insurance policies. The VA and Prudential disagree.

We have been talking about life insurance and the Armed Forces. A group of four families has taken the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Prudential Financial Inc. to court over payment of life insurance benefits. The defendants say the deceased family members, all former active duty military, were not covered because they did not complete the appropriate paperwork.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, four families of military veterans claim that the Department of Veterans Affairs and Prudential Insurance owes them restitution. While we often — perhaps too often — come across complaints that an insurer has failed to pay a life insurance claim, there is more red tape to this case than to most. And there is red tape that Florida’s military families should know about.

In our last post, we were discussing a report about computer-based claims systems. The author alleges that the software allows insurers to underpay claims, especially auto and property insurance claims for bodily injury. Companies market the software as a tool to help insurance companies be more consistent in evaluating injury claims, according to the report. The more consistent the payouts are, the more consistent the rates will be. In the end, the theory goes, everyone will save money.

A consumer advocacy group published a report last month that provides some valuable insight into auto and property insurance companies and how they process claims. The author focused specifically on a brand of claim evaluation software that is widely used in the insurance industry. He maintains that the software saves money by ensuring that the insurance company underpays claims, especially bodily injury claims.

It may not have happened in Florida, but it could have happened in the movies. A 51-year-old man has filed a lawsuit against an insurance company, claiming that the insurer has failed to pay the death benefit it owes him. The deceased was the man’s traveling companion in August 2011. He is a “person of interest” in her disappearance.

The explosion of a container of oven cleaner blinded a man seven years ago and he permanently lost sight in both of his eyes. However, the trauma of losing his sense of sight did not deter the injury victim from pursuing his claim to insurance benefits.

The Economic Policy subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on May 9 to examine some of the issues in the area of flood insurance. With the National Flood Insurance Program currently scheduled to expire before June, some committee members called on their fellow legislators to take prompt action both to reform the program and to reauthorize it for the long haul. The program has provided important benefits and safeguards against property damage to homes in Florida and elsewhere in the country.

If you watch television at all, you have probably seen one of the ads for cars with the self-parking feature. The insurance industry has been strangely quiet on the subject of automated features like parallel parking. It will be interesting to see if insurers, auto manufacturers and the courts draw a new line between personal and product liability.

A bill quietly made it through the Florida Legislature this session that poses some tricky questions for the insurance industry. Surprisingly, it is not related to property insurance or personal injury protection coverage, the two “hot button” insurance issues in the state. Rather, the new law deals with autonomous, or driverless, motor vehicles, and our question is this: If the car drives itself, is an auto insurance company obligated to defend the policyholder from a third-party lawsuit?