Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today asked two companies for documents relating to their handling of long term care insurance claims.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the committee, and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, say they have concerns about accounts in a recent New York Times article of problems with the way the companies, Conseco Inc., Carmel, Ind., and Penn Treaty American Corp., Allentown, Pa., treat LTC insurance claims.
The accounts indicate that some LTC insurers “may have developed procedures that make it difficult–if not impossible–for policyholders to get paid,” Dingell and Stupak write in a letter to Conseco.
The Times article “described business practices that denied or delayed policyholders’ claims for seemingly trivial reasons,” Dingell and Stupak write in a second letter, to Penn Treaty.
“People who invest in long-term care policies and pay their premiums faithfully should be able to rely on those policies when the need arises,” Dingell says in a statement about the probe.