Insurers Owe Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to the Beneficiaries of Deceased Customers' Life-Insurance Policies

Well I'll be!  Big corporate malfeasance once again.  I can't believe it but I should know better.  This is scary stuff.    Many of the largest life insurance companies in the country have not paid out death claims on deceased customers' life insurance policies to beneficiaries.  The way the system works now, per life insurance contracts, the beneficiary is supposed to notify the insurance company that the policy holder has died.  But many people/survivors/beneficiaries, mostly low-income, don't even know that the deceased had a life insurance policy.  So the  insurance company sits on the proceeds and gets to keep them if no one claims the money.  The companies use a Social Security death database when it's been beneficial to them, such as cutting off retirement-income checks.  Hmmmm.  They'll go out of their way to benefit themselves but not their customers.   What a surprise!  So state regulators have recently started forcing life insurance companies to use the death database to pay out to beneficiaries.  Will there be penalties, fines and settlement agreements?  Should there be?  So far most of the minimal number of cases settled have resulted in the insurance companies denying wrongdoing as part of the settlement.  Big companies never seem to have a sense of shame.  Why not get them to admit to wrongdoing and then have them pay out a whole lot more money in penalties and fines.  Big companies are slapped on the wrist and executives laugh all the way to the bank.