We seem to be on something of a life insurance fraud roll here. Almost exactly a month ago we reported on the case of a rocket surgeon greedy wife's efforts to collect on her husband's life insurance policy after arranging his premature demise (spoiler alert: she failed).
The case now at hand is particularly intriguing; at first, I was somewhat dumbfounded as to how the insurer could have been so easily duped, but as the story unfolded, it got even weirder. And that this all took place about a half hour away from me added a sense of the macabre.
A brief underwriting refresher: when applying for life insurance (especially anything over $100,000) one is required to undergo (at least) some sort of physical exam. Depending on the amount at risk, this can range from simple blood and urine tests to EKG's and stress tests. In this case, West Coast Life was set to be on the hook for just shy of $3 million, so of course the medical underwriting would be vigorous.There's another angle (financial) but we'll elide over this for purposes of this post.
Here's where it begins to get weird: the application was apparently written in Ohio, but the applicant chose to have the exam done in Texas. I'm thinking that right there's a red flag, but apparently WCL wasn't bothered by it (or perhaps, they became retrospectively concerned). In the event, a person claiming to be the applicant shows up, all 176 pounds of her.
Which would not necessarily be weird in and of itself, but the person who actually died clocked in at almost 400 pounds [ed: Hey. it could happen! Spend a few days at the Golden Corral and Bob's your uncle]. Kind of a clue. The fact that the applicant indicated no substantial health history, and yet was dead within a few short years of (presumably) natural causes was likely another.
And so now the family of the insured is being charged with life insurance fraud; one presumes a lawsuit on behalf of West Coast Life will follow directly.
[Hat Tip: FoIB Holly R]
The case now at hand is particularly intriguing; at first, I was somewhat dumbfounded as to how the insurer could have been so easily duped, but as the story unfolded, it got even weirder. And that this all took place about a half hour away from me added a sense of the macabre.
A brief underwriting refresher: when applying for life insurance (especially anything over $100,000) one is required to undergo (at least) some sort of physical exam. Depending on the amount at risk, this can range from simple blood and urine tests to EKG's and stress tests. In this case, West Coast Life was set to be on the hook for just shy of $3 million, so of course the medical underwriting would be vigorous.There's another angle (financial) but we'll elide over this for purposes of this post.
Here's where it begins to get weird: the application was apparently written in Ohio, but the applicant chose to have the exam done in Texas. I'm thinking that right there's a red flag, but apparently WCL wasn't bothered by it (or perhaps, they became retrospectively concerned). In the event, a person claiming to be the applicant shows up, all 176 pounds of her.
Which would not necessarily be weird in and of itself, but the person who actually died clocked in at almost 400 pounds [ed: Hey. it could happen! Spend a few days at the Golden Corral and Bob's your uncle]. Kind of a clue. The fact that the applicant indicated no substantial health history, and yet was dead within a few short years of (presumably) natural causes was likely another.
And so now the family of the insured is being charged with life insurance fraud; one presumes a lawsuit on behalf of West Coast Life will follow directly.
[Hat Tip: FoIB Holly R]
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