Posted on 11/15/2008 7:15:41 PM PST by neverdem
As the Long Island Rail Road began warning its workers not to file fraudulent claims for private disability insurance, interviews with insurers this week revealed a fuller picture of how some of the railroad’s retirees and current employees have been able to collect an array of disability payments.
At least five federal and state agencies are investigating the legitimacy of disabilities at the L.I.R.R., where in recent years more than 90 percent of career employees have retired early and claimed disability payments from the federal Railroad Retirement Board. But many of the railroad’s workers also secure disability policies from private insurers that routinely exclude applicants with pre-existing conditions.
Nearly a quarter of the 6,800 current L.I.R.R. workers have bought private insurance through payroll deductions, and in the last five years, more than 300 employees and retirees have filed claims on policies from Aflac and other insurers, according to L.I.R.R. and Aflac officials. On top of payouts for salary loss, some of the private policies also pay car loans and credit-card balances and waive life insurance premiums.
According to one of the brokers who sold most of the private policies, the payroll deductions date to 1998, when rail unions asked L.I.R.R. management to set up the system. The railroad has also allowed insurance agents to walk the tracks and visit its lunchrooms. In addition, at a hearing last month on Long Island, the railroad’s president, Helena Williams, testified that some managers had, without authorization, improperly signed insurance forms allowing workers to collect on private disability policies.
It was against that backdrop that the railroad on Thursday inserted notices in employees’ paychecks saying, “Any employee found to have filed a baseless claim for disability benefits, offered incorrect or misleading information in support of a claim, or assisted another in filing such a....”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sounds like they’ll also need a BAIL OUT, these poor business practices...ugh. Just as long as the money trail trickles, people don’t have to worry about PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, because in the end, THE TAB will be picked up and paid for IN FULL by....the...electorate. Celebrate Victory. Be patriotic and pay those taxes, with a SMILE.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Its a well known scam in NY among firefighters, police, transit workers.
Getting close to retirement? Cover for your boss and get injured. You will get disability pay for life based on your superiors salary.
Thanks for the ping!
Am I reading this right? These workers are claiming disability from the RRB, and at the same time they’re buying private policies in case they really become disabled?
What a travesty it would be to have this POS as senator
The shysters in Michigan openly advertise that they’ll get you SS disability or workmen’s comp. Half the idiots in my town are on workmen’s comp., veteran disability or SS disability.
It’s a big scam.
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