Hartford

Hartford gives my son $59 a month even though his treatment is almost $10k per month

Reviewed by Fran Alt on January 31st 2014   Verified Policyholder
My son worked for Walmart for 18 years before he was diagnosed with stage four melanoma with mets to brain, lymph nodes, illiac chain and more. He was given a few months to live. That all began in April of 2011. I learned that doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center announced a new chemo, actually two new chemos that were prolonging life in melanoma patients. We told three local oncologist who said, those meds will kill him! This after he told me my son had three months to live! I left that NC doctor and went to a University and told them what I knew about Sloan. We went to Sloan and the University docs followed their regimen. Bottom line: my son got SSD, and after a long wait, a lump sum check for short term disability from the Hartford. He was expecting the same for his long term and was hoping to buy a handicap van with the money, instead, they gave him $59 a month. He is still terminal and due to the location and damage from brain tumors, he is quadriplegic. I checked the Walmart site and I guess this $59 is legal. Shame because his total medical insurance is more than $700 a month. His chemotherapy is in pill form and costs $8,500 a month. His income is $1,025 from SAD and $59 from Hartford. He will never get to see much of the long term money he counted on for the van. Too bad we all do not read the fine print!
Reply
Sent on January 31st 2014 by Attorney Stephen Jessup

Fran, our thoughts are with your son. Unfortunately, group disability policies allow the benefit to be offset by the amount received from Social Security and other sources of enumerated “Other Income.”