Devoted to the Insurance industry and all thing related

While this is my first foray into 2008 presidential candidates dealings with the insurance industry I highly doubt it’ll be the last.  A post on the A View From The Press Box blog by Sam Friedman mentions Senator Barack Obama’s recent request for the “GAO to examine claims denial rates, the extent to which denials were justifiable, and the percentage of policies sold that do adjust and do not adjust for inflation, along with the frequency and amount of premium increases in already-purchased policies, average lapse rates of policyholders, and the correlation between premium increases and lapse rates.”

With all of that requested information by Obama I’d hope the results of the inquiry would shed a positive light on the LTC industry.  As I mentioned in a previous post about the recent New York Times long-term care insurance article the LTC industry as a whole has an impressive claims paying record.  There will always be a few horrible cases of people being denied a claim for seemingly wrong reasons.

Friedman goes on to comment on the fact that a politician can help boost his or her career by going after big insurers who’ve wronged claimants.  Insurers are easy marks when it comes to assisting politicians and unfortunately will continue to be as some insurers conduct business in a less than correct manner.  This is not to say that most or even a lot of insurers are doing bad business but finding those that do is usually not too difficult.  

 

Friedman writes about how some insurers need to clean up their act:

“Insurers have no one but themselves to blame for their mishaps. Everyone talks the talk about putting policyholders first, but unless everyone walks the walk, this industry will continue to be hammered by lawmakers of all stripes, and rightfully so.”  

Do you think that Obama will find positive information about LTC claims or the opposite?  I also wonder if we’ll hear anything from him once he has the data on his desk.