What Would the Agent Do in this Situation?

[Brian Anderson]

I don't know all the specifics, but there was no mention of an agent or agency in this case (see link below) about Pru eventually paying a life claim for $119,000 to a beneficiary who had purchased a policy on his then-wife 20 years earlier through his employer. Article tells it as a "black-eye" case where the big, bad insurance company stonewalls the little guy, thinking he would just give up.

Hypothetically, if your agency had sold the policy to the client via the employer, what would your role be in a case like this?

You and the Law: Prudential life insurance finally does right thing

 

[walthamny]

The company issued a group term policy and it had a clause saying that you had to be married at the time of death for the policy to be effective. Client became an insured of the group life policy. Client later got divorced. He was no longer covered by the group term policy. Prudential after fighting this decided to give in and pay the claim. I don't see anything wrong with what Prudential did here.

There are group term contracts out there that dont pay if you die in a car accident and you did not have a seat belt on. Since I am not a lawyer and we dont have all the facts, it is possible that Prudential decided to pay this because the marriage clause may no longer be enforcible in a legal sense.

 

[VolAgent]

That wasn't journalism, but a smear piece. The author had already decided the facts and wanted to present them in the most harmful light possible.

Based on the evidence given in the article, it does appear Prudential made a mistake and the prudent thing would be to pay the claim. Of course, considering the quality of the writing, I imagine there is much to this story that was left out.

As to the question about agent or agency. This was sold to Lockheed-Martin, I imagine it was done by a very large benefit agency or even direct from Prudential. I doubt the agency even knew about this or would have gotten involved has they know.