In brief: The New York State Department of Financial Services announced an investigation into life insurance refusals, prompting insurers to pay out more than $52 million in benefits.
The full story
The probe looked at failures to pay when companies didn't match a state master file of deaths to active policies to find unpaid beneficiaries. More than 8,000 were found in the investigation, forcing insurers to pay out $52.6 million in benefits.
DOFS now requires all insurers to match available data to identify dead policyholders in New York. More than 28,000 more matches were found and are being verified for claims now.
Summing up
Another million after that will be checked in a backlog going back several years.
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