Posts Tagged ‘military’
WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 4, 2010 —”News reports about life insurance companies profiting off our war dead struck an emotional nerve at every level,” said Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., national commander of the 2.1 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. and its Auxiliaries.
“It may be a legal industry practice, but learning that a company is earning more interest than what they pay out to surviving families just reeks of corporate greed and irresponsibility.”
According to Bloomberg News, if beneficiaries do not request a lump sum payment or direct the money elsewhere, insurers are holding the funds in corporate accounts that provide ridiculously low interest rates, plus they are giving misleading guarantees about the safety of the funds.
For example, Bloomberg reported that Prudential in 2008 paid survivors 1 percent interest on their accounts, while the company itself earned a 4.8-percent return on the same account. Prudential is the nation’s second-largest life insurer and manages the Servicemember and Veterans Group Life Insurance programs for 6 million military and military retirees. MetLife, the country’s largest life insurer, provides insurance for all nonmilitary federal employees.
Prudential defended their practice by saying its Alliance Account “does not in any way take money from beneficiaries,” and that beneficiaries can withdraw the entire amount, plus interest, at anytime without penalty. Prudential admits the account is not FDIC insured — a fact disclosed in their material — but alluding to State Guaranty Funds protections is misleading. State Guaranty Funds are nongovernment safety nets, similar to insurance to protect the policyholders of insurance companies that might fail. Only a fraction of the State Guaranty Funds provided in all 50 states and the District of Columbia would cover the top SGLI or VGLI amount of $400,000.
“This entire issue is about full disclosure,” said Tradewell, a combat-wounded Vietnam veteran from Sussex, Wis.
“I know that the interest rate my savings account is earning is far less than what my bank earns by virtue of them holding my money. The difference is I know that, the surviving families do not. They think their money is safe and earning a good rate of return, where in fact their money isn’t fully protected and only the insurance company is earning the profit, which just isn’t right.”
In the aftermath of the Bloomberg article, the Department of Veterans Affairs, who oversees the SGLI and VGLI insurance programs, announced last week it would investigate the holding practice. Rep. Deborah Halvorson (D-Ill.), the step-mother of an Army Special Forces soldier who was wounded in Afghanistan, introduced legislation to require companies to tell beneficiaries how their money will be invested, and how much the insurer stands to make from holding the funds. And New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced an investigation of the practice, which Bloomberg reported has allowed more than 100 insurance carriers to retain and earn investment income on $28 billion owed to life insurance beneficiaries around the country. MetLife is based in New York.
From the VFW.org web site.
If you have never served in the armed forces, for any country, you will not understand. It seems to me that our current Chief Executive (never served) has no idea what is going on.
Rolling Stone Magazine had reporters on site during meetings held by the General with his staff. Could it be that Rolling Stone Magazine is out to get him?
Military people (and I will bet the Commander in Chief also) are apt to talk “loosely” about things that are going on because there is much riding on their situation. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that the magazine took part of many things they heard and now are trying to hang this 4-star general.
The President doesn’t seem to mind when his Vice President says f*** on a public broadcast, which, by the way, was certainly not covered this much by the liberal media.
I’ll even bet that the President has been saying worse things about his military leaders, Governors of various states, heads of state of other countries and who knows who else. Have a Rolling Stone Magazine reporter stick with him for a month and then let’s see what happens.
And that’s my view.
KANSAS CITY, Mo., February 12, 2010 —Due to overwhelming response from the veteran community following last year’s live stream from the 110th VFW National Convention, VFW will stream live from this year’s National Legislative Conference, March 6-10, only on www.vfw.org
Streaming will begin with the Voice of Democracy Parade of Winners at 6:00 p.m. (EST) on March 7th.
We’ll pick it back up with the Conference’s Opening Session, set to begin at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, featuring guest speakers General George W. Casey, Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki.
A delayed stream of VFW Commander-in-Chief, Thomas Tradewell’s testimony on Capitol Hill will also air the afternoon of Tuesday, March 9.
In addition to streaming the segments live, all events will also be available on demand.
For up to the minute information, video clips and pictures from the VFW National Legislative Conference join us on Facebook!
I hope you enjoy these videos.
Check this KISS performance!!
Were you aware that as of the time I am writing this there are about 1.5 people in the United States Military? Were you aware that there are about 28 million veterans? If we all spoke with one voice that would be about the largest single voice in this country. So, why don’t we?
Is it because we don’t agree on everything? Now that’s dumb! When we were trained and when we served we ALL were trained to work together as a team and to think alike. Well, thoughts change as we continue to grow. But, I’ll bet there are common thoughts like this one:
We all swore to protect our constitution, our flag and our country. So why are we letting people enter our country ILLEGALLY?
Most Veterans I have spoken with agree that the borders and the security of our nation must be a high priority no matter who the President is. We must all speak out and keep the Federal Government on the Correct course or our service time was WASTED.
And that’s my view.
My wife and I were very lucky a couple of years ago when we found the Snowball Express a non-profit organization. At the time they were looking for Travel Agents to help them with a huge event being held in Southern California. We spent many hours, as travel agents, helping them book military families to their annual event. The following year we again assisted them in making travel arrangements for the military families.
The third year we were fortunate enough to actually get our butts out to Anaheim to see, first hand, what happens at the other end of the bookings we made. Trust me when I say, you will NEVER experience anything as emotional as that. It was a mixture of sadness and joy, of a huge rush of awe at the strength of these families. It is something we will both remember forever.
After you have finished reading the above I strongly recommend you visit their web site at www.snowballexpress.org and go through the site in depth. Here is a clue. This organization is helping the families of our fallen military – all our fallen military since 9/11/2001.