Judge Orders Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company to Pay Disability Policy

Our client purchased a disability insurance policy from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. One year later, he suffered a series of debilitating strokes. MassMutual disclaimed coverage and refused to pay any benefits. It claimed that the client had declared on his application that certain pre-existing insurance coverage would be cancelled upon issuance of the new MassMutual policy, and that the coverage had not been cancelled.

We proved that MassMutual’s agent added the provision requiring cancellation of the pre-existing coverage after the client signed the application. We proved that the client did not know that cancellation of the pre-existing coverage was a condition of obtaining the new MassMutual policy, because the agent never told him about MassMutual’s underwriting requirements. We proved that the insurer’s agent failed to deliver to the client the policy with a copy of the application attached to it before the client became disabled, and that the client therefore did not know about the agent’s changes to the application.

The Court declared the MassMutual policy to be in full force and effect, finding that the undertaking to cancel the pre-existing coverage contained in the application could not be attributed to the client and could not be used to void the MassMutual policy.