Health Insurers Improperly Cancelling Health Insurance Policies

 Posted on September 10, 2009 in Business Counseling, Litigation & Transactions

The Washington Post has just published a fascinating article about health insurers who improperly cancel health insurance policies to save money once their insureds got sick. What a outrageous thing for an insurer to do. The article reports large verdicts against these health insurers, which are totally appropriate. With one such insurer, the employees actually received bonuses for cancelling such policies. What a disgrace. A copy of the article regarding can be found here. You will need to quickly register to view the article but it is worth it.

Over the years, I have successfully handled a number of breach of contract cases, which is really the main claim in such cases. In such a case, extensive pretrial discovery is necessary to get to the root of why these policies are cancelled. Having an understanding of medical issues also is very helpful.

Amazingly, some health insurers don’t seem to understand that people buy their policy to protect themselves form catastrophic medical bills and, after these people have paid premiums for years, they expect that the insurer will actually pay those bills if necessary. Amazing.