Life Insurance Lawyer Serving Indiana

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Our life insurance lawyers have helped people throughout Indiana get the life insurance payout their loved one intended.

A policyholder purchases a life insurance policy to ensure the financial well-being of their beneficiaries. You would think that life insurance beneficiaries automatically receive the death benefit upon the policyholder’s death, but unfortunately, this is not always the case. 

Because they are motivated to make money for their shareholders, just like any other business, life insurance companies often deny or delay payment on life insurance claims. If you feel your life insurance claim was wrongly denied or payment is being delayed, the IN life insurance lawyers at Boonswang Law can help you get your payout.

The Life Insurance Lawyers at Boonswang Law Have Helped Beneficiaries from these Indiana Cities and the Surrounding Areas:

Call Boonswang Law to Discuss Your Claim with a Life Insurance Lawyer in Indiana

Common Reasons Indiana Life Insurance Death Benefits Get Denied

The Life Insurance Policy Lapsed or Terminated

You know how life insurance works – a life insurance company provides coverage in exchange for a policyholder’s premium payments. If premiums are not paid, a policyholder’s life insurance coverage lapses and terminates. 

Terminating life insurance coverage is highly regulated in each state, and often life insurance companies and employers who provide group life insurance coverage to employees fail to follow those regulations, resulting in nonpayment of premiums that is not the fault of the policyholder. In these instances we may be able to get the beneficiary paid.

Contact Boonswang Law, Your Indiana Life Insurance Lawyers, to Discuss Your Life Insurance Claim

The Boonswang Law Firm has been helping life insurance beneficiaries throughout Indiana for decades. Our goal is to get you the death benefits you are entitled to in a timely and efficient manner. 

Don’t take no for an answer! Contact us for a free, no-obligation consultation. We are ready to fight for you!

A Policy Exclusion Allegedly Applies

Every policy will list causes of death that are not covered. These are called “exclusions.” Suicide and death due to terorism or acts of war are common exclusions in life insurance policies. 

If an exclusion can be stretched to apply to a policyholder’s death, believe that the life insurance company will claim that it applies and deny your claim. In these cases, we investigate and can often show that the exclusion does not apply, and we get our beneficiary clients paid.

Alleged Misrepresentation

Those at greater risk of dying during the policy term pay higher premiums. The life insurance company calculates that risk by factoring in things like a policyholder’s age, weight, occupation, health and medical conditions, and lifestyle habits like drinking alcohol or smoking. 

If a policyholder omits information or makes a mistake on the initial application for life insurance or the medical questionnaire, the life insurance company will allege that they misrepresented themselves in order to get a lower premium payment and then deny your claim.

In these cases, we may be able to get you paid the death benefit minus the amount the policyholder would have paid in premiums had the life insurance company known of the missing fact. Call us if your claim was denied due to misrepresentation.

Proof of Death Not Sufficient

When a policyholder dies overseas, life insurance companies generally delay payment on claims for death benefits because of a delay in receiving a death certificate, or because a foreign death certificate contains insufficient information regarding the policyholder’s death.

If the life insurance company is delaying payment on your life insurance claim for this reason, contact us. We can help – and the life insurance company may owe you interest!

Insurance Scams & Bad Faith: What to Watch Out For

Navigating the complexities of life insurance can be challenging. Understanding the potential pitfalls and scams can be particularly crucial to ensure that your life insurance benefits are protected. Here are some situations you should be aware of:

Indexed Universal Life Insurance

Indexed Universal Life Insurance (IUL) is a type of permanent life insurance that ties the growth of the cash value to a stock market index. While indexed universal life insurance policies can provide an opportunity for significant growth, they can also be mis-sold by agents who don’t fully explain their complexity, risks, and costs. 

Before purchasing an IUL, make sure you understand all the nuances, such as surrender charges, the potential for loss, and the cost of insurance increases. Contact a life insurance attorney if you feel you’ve been scammed by IUL insurance policies.

Churning Scams

Insurance churning occurs when an agent convinces a client to cancel their current policy and buy a new one, typically with the promise of better life insurance benefits or lower premiums. However, the primary motive for the agent is often the commission earned from selling a new policy.

Churning can result in higher premiums, new contestability periods, and potential loss of life insurance benefits. If you feel like you’ve been the target of a churning scam, consult with a trusted professional or an experienced life insurance lawyer in Indiana.

Insurance Bad Faith

Insurance bad faith refers to unethical practices by insurance companies, such as delaying claim investigations, denying life insurance claims without a valid reason, or misrepresenting policy terms. 

If you suspect that your claim is being handled in bad faith, it may be necessary to involve a life insurance lawyer. An experienced life insurance attorney from our law firm can help you understand your rights and navigate the complexities of a bad faith claim.

What to Expect When You Work with an Indiana Life Insurance Lawyer at Boonswang Law

You have probably never worked with an experienced life insurance lawyer before. Here’s what we do for you, among other things:

  • We review the life insurance policy terms and provisions to determine coverage and exclusions, and we explain these to you
  • We review the denial letter and any other correspondence from the life insurance company to identify the reason or reasons for a delay or denial of your claim
  • We investigate allegations made by the life insurance company in denying your claim to refute or cast doubt on those allegations
  • We negotiate with the life insurance company to get you a payout when there is a dispute
  • We vigorously pursue your claim in court against the life insurance company when they are acting unreasonably or dishonestly in delaying or denying the payment of your valid life insurance claim

If you are a life insurance beneficiary, you should know that life insurance companies have experts, consultants and lawyers who are tasked with looking out for the company’s bottom line. The more premiums a life insurance company collects and the fewer death benefit claims they pay out, the more profit they make for their shareholders. In other words, the interests of the life insurance company are at odds with yours and with the policyholder’s.

The life insurance lawyers at Boonswang Law will fight to get you the death benefits you deserve after your loved one’s death. 

Frequently Asked Questions About Life Insurance Claims in Indiana

What Happens If My Life Insurance Payout is Delayed?

If the delay is unreasonable, meaning, the life insurance company had no valid reason for waiting to pay your claim, you may be entitled to interest on the death benefit. Call us to discuss your case.

You should contest denial of your claim. Life insurance companies frequently deny valid claims in order to make money for their shareholders.

When you receive the denial letter you should also receive documents explaining how to contest the denial with the life insurance company. Call us if you need to contest denial of your life insurance claim – we can help you fight the lawyers at the life insurance company.

A minor cannot directly receive life insurance death benefits. Likely, a court will have to appoint a conservator to administer the funds on behalf of the minor beneficiary. Unfortunately, there is little to prevent a conservator from using the funds for their own benefit.

If a policyholder wishes a minor to receive the death benefit, they should set up a trust with the minor as beneficiary of the trust, and name the trust as beneficiary of the life insurance policy. This way, they can select who will act as trustee.

You can contest a beneficiary designation change if you suspect the change was made fraudulently or under duress. These cases are very difficult to prove, so be sure to contact an experienced life insurance beneficiary attorney for help litigating this.

You should contest the denial. It is possible to still get a payout if the lapse was not the fault of the policyholder, for example, if an employer failed to give the policyholder conversion papers or improperly administered the policy, or if the life insurance company failed to send the policyholder the legally-required notices of lapse.

Call our IN life insurance lawyers if your life insurance claim was denied due to lapse. We will investigate and get you paid if at all possible.

If you suspect a loved one had a life insurance policy but don’t know for sure, you will have to dig around for evidence. The contents of a safe-deposit box or your loved one’s desk drawers might give you a clue.. You can also look through your loved one’s recent mail for premium notices, and look through bank account statements for evidence of premium payments.

Absolutely not. If the beneficiary designation was changed after the date of the policyholder’s death, that change was fraudulent. Contact an experienced life insurance beneficiary attorney immediately.

Yes, if they were supposed to be the named beneficiary for any reason and someone else was named. Contact us if you were supposed to be a beneficiary on a life insurance policy but someone else was named instead – we can help you.

If the primary beneficiary died before the policyholder, the life insurance company will pay the death benefit to the secondary beneficiary or the contingent beneficiary. If the policyholder did not designate secondary or contingent beneficiaries, the death benefit can be paid to the policyholder’s estate.

A life insurance company should pay the beneficiary within 30-60 days of the claim being submitted. If this time has passed and your claim has not been paid yet, contact us. When a life insurance company unreasonably delays payment on a life insurance claim, they may owe you interest on the death benefit.