Life Insurance Claim Attorney for Denied, Delayed and Disputed Claims

Whether you need a Florida attorney to help file a life insurance claim, or a life insurance lawyer in Florida to help fight the life insurance company to get you the benefits you deserve, or a Florida life insurance law firm to help with an interpleader lawsuit for life insurance benefits that you received, you should look for the best Florida life insurance lawyer to help with your claim. Call one of the life insurance attorneys at the Law Offices of Jason Turchin today for a free consultation to see if we would be the best life insurance attorneys for you. Call (800) 337-7755. We are also on call, open late and on weekends to help with your life insurance case in Florida.

We’ve now expanded our practice and handle life insurance disputes nationwide through our network of local counsels!

What Types of Florida Life Insurance Claim Cases can you Handle?

Denial for material misrepresentation – Whenever a person dies within two years of getting life insurance in Florida, a life insurance company generally has the right to investigate the death and the insured’s medical records to see whether there were any inaccuracies or inconsistencies with the policy application. If there were any misrepresentations on the policy application and those were material to the life insurance company issuing the policy, the life insurance company may try to deny the claim for life insurance benefits.

Just because the life insurance company denies the claim based on material misrepresentation doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not entitled to benefits. There are different standards that the life insurance company must overcome before they can legally denied benefits. Even misrepresentations on life insurance policy applications do not necessarily give a life insurance company the right to deny the claim. They have to prove the misrepresentations were actually material misrepresentations.

Divorced spouse exclusion – Many couples take out life insurance on the other spouse during marriage. Florida recently passed a law that generally says if you have life insurance on your spouse and you get divorced, the divorced spouse is treated as though they predeceased the other spouse for purposes of life insurance. That means that if a wife owns a life insurance policy on her husband where she was the beneficiary, if they got divorced and made no reference to life insurance in their divorce settlements, the life insurance company may skip over the wife pay the contingent beneficiary benefits even if she’s been paying the premiums the whole time.

This new divorce statute is very controversial and you should speak with a Florida life insurance attorney at the Law Offices of Jason Turchin before accepting any denial from the life insurance company. There may be several ways to still collect benefits even if you were a divorced spouse listed as a beneficiary.

Policy reinstatement issues – When a policy is reinstated or changed, the life insurance company often tries to also reinstate the two year contestability provision on the insurance policy. This means any statements made on the reinstatement application may be investigated by the life insurance company to later try to deny payments if the insured dies within two years of the reinstatement. There are many arguments to invalidate a denial of life insurance based on statements made in a reinstatement application. Let a life insurance attorney review the circumstances before accepting the denial.

Misapplication of premium payments – When the policy is canceled for nonpayment of premiums, we often study the policy payment history to determine whether the insurance company properly counted and applied all premium payments. Sometimes prepayments are made when a policy first goes into effect which may be more then the actual premium payments. When this occurs, the additional payments may be applied to overdue payments down the road. Sometimes the life insurance company may just forget to count one of the payments. When this occurs, the life insurance company may have to reinstate the policy.

Assault and battery exclusions – Some policies like accidental death and dismemberment policies exclude coverage if the insured dies as a result of an assault or battery. The language is sometimes vague on the policies as to whether the death falls within one of the exclusions, and you should have a life insurance attorney review the policy to determine if the insurance company was correct.

Interpleader lawsuits – These arise generally when more than one beneficiary tries to claim the same policy benefits. The life insurance company deposits the money in the court’s registry, like a bank account, and sues every potential beneficiary. The beneficiaries then have to litigate the lawsuit to have a court determine who is entitled to the benefits, if the beneficiaries can’t work it out. This is a life insurance interpleader lawsuit. A life insurance interpleader lawyer can help fight for your rights in court.

Beneficiary changes – If you believe the beneficiary change was made improperly, a life insurance attorney should review the policy, application, and any beneficiary changes to see if they were done properly and correctly. There are several ways to invalidate a beneficiary change, including proving that the policy owner was unduly influenced, lacked the capacity to understand what he or she was doing, or suffered from an insane delusion at the time the change was made. There are also contractual requirements from the life insurance company to have a valid beneficiary change. Florida courts have required strict compliance with the terms of the policy in order to effectuate a change in the beneficiary. We handle both provide life insurance claims and ERISA life insurance claim cases.

Policy cancellation for failure to pay premiums – A Florida life insurance company may cancel a policy for nonpayment of premiums, but there may be requirements of how they are allowed to do so. Depending on the policy language, or the age of the insured, owner, or beneficiary, sometimes the life insurance company needs to send a specific notice letter prior to canceling the policy. If it failed to send the notice letter, the court may order payment of the life insurance benefits. Sometimes the life insurance company also fails to properly apply premium payments. The policy payment history should be reviewed to determine whether payments were made to the life insurance company and were not applied improperly. This may help to get the denial to pay benefits to be reversed.

Failure to accept premium payments – When a policy owner tries to make payments to a life insurance company while the policy is still in effect or during a grace period, but the life insurance company refuses to take payments or tries to avoid taking payments, the court may find the policy should still be in effect.

Suicide exclusions – A life insurance policy may exclude benefits if the insured committed suicide. Some limit the exclusion to just two years while others exclude suicide throughout the entire policy term. Not all deaths that appear to be suicide are in fact suicide and the life insurance company may need to prove that it was a suicide, and not an accidental death.

Commission of a felony exclusions – Some life insurance policies exclude coverage if the insured died during the commission of a felony. One of the challenges the insurance company may face is proving that in fact a felony occurred since the criminal case may never have gone forward. A person is generally presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Accidental death versus natural causes – Accidental death and dismemberment life insurance policies generally require the insured to die as a result of an accident. Sometimes a person may fall as a result of a medical condition and later die, or may fall first and later be diagnosed with a medical condition before they die. The circumstances surrounding how the accident occurred may be relevant to proving that the death falls within the accidental death and dismemberment policy definitions. If your claim was denied because the life insurance company thought it was not an accident, but you believe it was, you may still have a claim for benefits under the policy.

Life Insurance Paid to Estate

Sometimes a life insurance company wants to pay the life insurance benefits to the Estate of the person who died. This may happen when there are no other beneficiaries alive, or where a listed beneficiary is the former divorced spouse of the insured.

When a policy owner or beneficiary dies and they are not the insured, Florida’s probate rules may apply. Our office has its own probate department in house to help determine how the policy benefits should be distributed. Generally, if the policy owner dies and it is not the same person as the insured, the policy is then owned by the estate of the owner.

To determine who may be entitled to benefits, however, we look at the beneficiary designation on the insurance policy. If there was another beneficiary listed as a contingent beneficiary, that person would generally be entitled to the insurance proceeds. If there was no contingent beneficiary, the proceeds are generally payable to the estate of the policy owner.

If the proceeds are payable to the estate of the policy owner, you generally need to open a probate estate in order to distribute the money. The money would be distributed pursuant to the owner’s will, if any, or Florida’s intestate laws if there was no will.

What do I do if I was Supposed to be Beneficiary on a Life Insurance Policy and I Just Found out the Policy was Changed to Remove me Before the Insured Died?

There are several issues that arise when a beneficiary change is made. Most importantly, it must have complied with the contractual requirements of the Florida life insurance policy. The policy generally specifies how a beneficiary change can be made. If it is not followed precisely, the beneficiary change may be invalid and would revert to the prior designation.

Other common beneficiary change disputes include:

• Caregiver beneficiary – Caregivers are often in a very intimate and close relationship with an insured. What a life insurance beneficiary is changed to a caregiver, it should be scrutinized to make sure the caregiver did not unduly influence the insured or take advantage of them if they did not have the capacity to understand what they were doing.
• Undue influence – This occurs where someone controls another to such a degree that the change was not made intelligently, understandingly and voluntarily. Some courts have said that in order for the undue influence to warrant cancellation of change of beneficiary of life policy, the mind must be so controlled by persuasion or pressure, artful or fraudulent contrivances, or by insidious influence of persons in close confidential relations with insured that he is not left to act intelligently, understandingly, and voluntarily, but subject to the will or purposes of another.
• Lack of capacity – If a policy owner changes the beneficiary while incompetent, the change may be invalidated.
• Insane delusion – An insane delusion has been defined as a spontaneous conception and acceptance as a fact, of that which has no real existence except in imagination. Changes made during a period of insanity may be invalidated.

If I Need Help With a Life Insurance Claim in Florida, how Does the Life Insurance Attorney get Paid?

Our Florida life insurance attorneys work on a contingency fee basis. That means we waive all fees and costs if there is no recovery. We only get paid if you recovered any benefits on the life insurance policy.

Where do You Handle Life Insurance Claims?

Jason Turchin is admitted in every State Court in Florida, and every Federal Court, including the United Stated District Court for the Southern District of Florida, United Stated District Court for the Middle District of Florida, and United Stated District Court for the Northern District of Florida, as well as several other state and federal bars. Our firm also works with co-counsel in many other states as is necessary.

The life insurance attorneys at the Law Offices of Jason Turchin act as:

• Orlando life insurance attorneys
• Miami life insurance lawyers
• Tampa life insurance claim dispute lawyers
• West Palm Beach attorneys for life insurance claim
• Broward County life insurance claim attorneys
• Naples life insurance claim assistance

We can handle your life insurance claim anywhere in Florida.

Where are Florida Life Insurance Lawsuits Generally Filed?

A Florida life insurance lawsuit may be filed in a federal or state court. Which court you file in depends on several factors. For example, if the life insurance company is out of state, and you are based in Florida, and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, the life insurance lawsuit may be filed in Federal court. That is called diversity jurisdiction.

When we are dealing a life insurance policy that is less than $75,000, or the life insurance company in Florida and the beneficiary is in Florida, the case is generally brought in state court.

What Life Insurance Companies can you Handle Life Insurance Claim Disputes Against?

Our attorneys can try to help get your life insurance benefits paid against most life insurance companies, including:

• Globe Life Insurance
• AIG Direct
• State Farm Life Insurance Company
• Fidelity Life Insurance
• Mutual of Omaha
• USAA
• Northwestern Mutual
• Ohio National
• Roversource
• Columbus Life Insurance Company
• Auto Owners Insurance
• Allianz
• Penn Mutual
• Pacific Life
• The Hartford
• Security Mutual
• New York Life
• Gerber Life Insurance Company
• MetLife
• Nationwide
• Genworth Financial
• American General AGLA
• Prudential
• ING
• Sunlife Financial
• Guardian
• Allstate
• Primerica
• Horace Mann
• Farmers
• Liberty Mutual Insurance
• Pruco Life Insurance
• Great Western Insurance Company

There are many others so please call us if you don’t see the name on the list and you may be entitled to life insurance benefits.

Our Guarantee

We guarantee that you will not have to pay us any costs or attorneys fees unless you recover money. We promise to work hard and fight for what you deserve.

Florida Life Insurance Dispute Attorneys – Miami Life Insurance Denial – Fort Lauderdale Whole Life Policy Denial.