Railroad Employees in general and Transportation Department employees in particular are prone to acquire a lot of different types of insurance through union agreements or purchases. They have short-term disability insurance, long-term disability and job insurance to pay when held out of service as discipline. Some insurance is provided in national union agreements while other coverages may be found in on-property agreements. Even retirees have a permanent $2000.00 life insurance policy which is often overlooked. Most policies are sold or included in union agreements and an individual policy is never issued. A payroll deduction card is signed to draft the premiums from their checks and a beneficiary card is provided but oftentimes is never returned. The only records are held by the provider.
Just about all of these policies have accidental death and dismemberment riders {AD&D} attached. Many years go by and even the employee can’t remember what that deduction from his check is for, the beneficiary named is no longer relevant or has died and in many cases the beneficiary card was never signed with a beneficiary named. There are additional accidental death and dismemberment riders that are of significant value. One national agreement provides $300,000.00 for loss of life in an off-track vehicle (along with similar amputee benefits). The standard national agreement provided for active employees covered by the National Railroad Employees Health and Welfare Agreement is $20,000 death benefit increased to 30 if accidental death. Through our experience, we have found AD&D riders of significant value on disability policies, job insurance (“whammy”) policies and other policies.
Unfortunately, tragedy does strike on-duty railroad employees. Families dealing with a fatality could easily think a disability policy would not be of any value and do not have an actual policy to refer to seeing that the employee has these type insurance policies and move on to other things not realizing there are AD&D riders attached. Perhaps the time has come to do an inventory of old insurance policies, paying special attention to riders on the policies from railroad related insurance and get them properly filed with notes attached to ensure nothing is lost and make certain to update the beneficiaries in any areas that need attention.
Some examples of companies that may have secondary AD&D riders attached to the primary insurance are BR&CF, LE&CMPA, RAILROAD MARKETING, CORNERSTONE, etc. All agreements need to be checked.
Sincerely,
Paul Wingo
423-802-7351
