Life Insurance for Veterans Deemed Inadequate

Posted in Health Care , Life Insurance

June 30th, 2009

Indiana Democratic Representative Joe Donnelly is pushing for higher life insurance benefits for veterans after deeming the current coverage amount inadequate. This may be because the current life insurancebenefit for disable veterans provided by the Service Disabled Veterans Insurance program is set at $10,000, which hasn’t changed in at least58 years.

Instead, he would like to have the maximum coverage increased to $100,000 with the option for every disabled veteran to sign up for higher coverage even if they currently carry group insurance.

But that’s not all the Rep. Donnelly is opting for:

• He wants veterans who are 100% service-disabled to be eligible for supplemental insurance to the tune of $50,000, instead of the current $20,000 supplemental coverage amount.
• He’s hoping for age-based premiums, ranging from 19 cents to $8.16 per $1,000, to be revised so that it matches an updated mortality table, rather than the current one that bases coverage on the assumption that veterans will die at the age of 58. This adjustment, he feels, could cut costs for veterans.

Veterans groups have been complaining for years that the coverage just wasn’t enough. Because of the outdated stats the S-DVI program uses, the coverage provided to disabled veterans hasn’t been competitive with private insurers in many decades.

Donnelly hopes that the HR 2713 bill he introduced in June to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee will push Congress into action so that for the first timein many years veterans willnot have to look to private insurersfor coveragethat can pay for more than funeral and burial costs.

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