Hartford Disability does not thank its veterans

Many insureds are also proud veterans of our United States military and deserve our respect, admiration and thanks for their courage, and service and dedication to our country. Many of them suffered injuries or illnesses and receive benefits from the VA. Hartford Life Insurance has its own odd way of thanking Veterans.

Hartford Life Insurance is on a search to find "increased" VA benefits for its insureds, only for that money to go to Hartford Life Insurance, through an offset provision in its group Long Term Disability policies. These offsets often include benefits received by disabled insureds from Social Security Disability or Workers Compensation.

The provision here for VA benefits, as it typically reads, states that Other Income Benefits include benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and that the failure to pursue such further benefits would result in an estimated offset against benefits. Hartford Life Insurance has been aggressive in its pursuit of tis VA increase, and has imposed deadlines for the application or estimation will occur.

The insured in this particular case has an 80% rating from the VA, fairly high and based upon a number of service injuries. Hartford Life Insurance believes that a 100% rating is appropriate (without any understanding of the process and despite many years having transpired), and has threatened the estimated offset if the insured does not make a timely application for further benefits, that he will not even get the actual benefit from.

Hartford Life Insurance does claim that increased benefits are valuable, as those VA benefits are tax free (in contrast with his LTD benefits from Hartford Life Insurance, and that they are payable until death. Rest assured, however, that Hartford Life Insurance is not looking out for the insured, but rather for its own financial bottom line.

These offset provisions act to subtract a claimant's total benefits from Hartford Life Insurance (as with other long term disability insurance companies), keeping the insured often at less than 70% of their prior earnings - even when paid benefits.