Life Insurance Cannot Be Refused Over Military Status or Duty Assignment

What this benefit is

Who is entitled to it

• The section protects members of the Armed Forces, the Reserves and the National Guard.
• Subsection B reaches an individual’s or a family member’s group coverage, so the household is inside the reinstatement rule.
• Your home is in Virginia.

1. 1Get the refusal in writing and get the reason in writing. The section turns on whether the refusal was due to status as a member of the Armed Forces, the Reserves or the National Guard, or to the duty assignment held while a member.
2. 2Read which product is protected. Subsection A covers life insurance — refusing to issue and refusing to continue are both named.
3. 3If group coverage lapsed because of your service, ask for reinstatement rather than a new application. Subsection B applies where an individual’s or a family member’s group life or group health coverage was terminated because of that military status, and prohibits refusal to reinstate on return to eligibility "regardless of continuation, renewal, reissue or replacement of the group insurance policy".
4. 4Push back on any new exclusions attached to the reinstated policy. The section says the reinstated coverage "shall not contain any new preexisting condition or other exclusions or limitations" — with the single exception that the unexpired remainder of a preexisting condition requirement that was not satisfied before termination may be applied once you return.
5. 5Take an unresolved refusal to the Bureau of Insurance at the State Corporation Commission, which is the regulator of insurers doing business in the Commonwealth.
6. 6Be aware of the carve-out. Subsection C disapplies the section wherever it is inconsistent or in conflict with a provision of Article 6 (§38.2-3438 et seq.) of Chapter 34.

Form

A written complaint to the insurer, then to the Bureau of Insurance

File with

The State Corporation Commission’s Bureau of Insurance

No renewal

Once granted it does not need renewing.