Forethought Group Inc. kindly provided the following response to a story we shared yesterday titled: “Forethought Group Inc. Forced to Return $25 Million From Funeral Policies”
Starting in 2011, Forethought proactively and voluntarily initiated an exhaustive internal review of its policyholders utilizing the Social Security Administration’s database of deaths in response to the issue of unclaimed property raised with several prominent insurance providers including John Hancock and Prudential. We were assisted in this review by ACS Unclaimed Property Clearinghouse, a Xerox company. Based on this review, we reached out to the State of California to facilitate payment for those cases where a customer had passed away and no claim had been submitted to Forethought.
The amounts associated with this review in California total 8,000 policyholders out of our 1.1 million in force policies or 0.7% of the total, and $25 million out of our $4.7 billion of life insurance in force or 0.5% of the total. Forethought has been proactive in resolving this issue and, in every case in which Forethought was aware that a customer had passed away, we have honored our policy obligations. There is no fine or penalty associated with this resolution, Forethought will pay any beneficiary amounts identified through this process or escheat remaining unclaimed amounts to the state.
