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Insurance Co. Drops HIV+ Teen, Pays Up


CHIEF JUSTICE JEAN HOEFER TOAL X390 (FAIR USE) | ADVOCATE.COM

South Carolina’s supreme court has ordered Fortis Insurance to cough up $10 million for wrongly revoking coverage of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV.

It is the most an insurance company has ever been ordered to pay in a case involving the practice of rescission  -- when an insurance company retroactively cancels coverage based on alleged misstatements, often right after diagnoses of life-threatening diseases.

Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal (pictured) called the 2002 decision by Fortis Insurance “reprehensible.”

The court upheld a lower court’s ruling against Fortis. That court awarded Jerome Mitchell $15 million in punitive damages -- the supreme court reduced that amount by $5 million.

Mitchell first learned that he was HIV-positive when, while en route to college, he donated blood. Fortis then rescinded his policy, citing a note from a nurse in his medical records that suggested he might have been diagnosed prior to his obtaining his insurance policy.

An underwriter working for Fortis who was concerned they might not have a case wrote the following to a committee reviewing Mitchell’s policy: "Technically, we do not have the results of the HIV tests. This is the only entry in the medical records regarding HIV status. Is it sufficient?"

His concerns were apparently ignored.
 

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Mommie Dammit
    Date posted: 9/18/2009 10:41:13 AM
    Hometown: Kansas City

    Comment:

    Well, I'm glad someone finally got some kind of justice out of a case like this - the Gods know I never did. When I ended up in the ER with Pneumocystis 18 years ago, the insurance company I had paid for the ER and then dropped my ass. 14 days and $240,000 in hospital bills later I was forced into SSI and Medicaid. I couldn't even find an attorney who would take my case, let alone get it to court, against the insurance company. My only satisfaction in the whole nightmare was that the company went bankrupt 5 years later. It took 12 years to claw my way back out of that legal and financial mess, with the only blessing being that I have had some of the best physicians assisting me along the way. Congratulations on your victory, Jerome - don't squander it... and never give up. HIV may be the unwanted guest that won't leave, but Life is still our party. Live it to the fullest.

  • Name: Olin
    Date posted: 9/17/2009 10:52:26 PM
    Hometown: Bellefonte, Pa.

    Comment:

    Sorry for multiple postings.

  • Name: Olin Blankenship
    Date posted: 9/17/2009 10:47:13 PM
    Hometown: Bellefonte, Pa.

    Comment:

    No Paul, this is the health insurance - as it exists today - that those in Washington, with our backing, are trying to change. If you read the news, or listened to the presiden't speech, the Health Care Reform bill says - in part - that this is EXACTLY what insurance companies will not be able to do in the future.

  • Name: Olin Blankenship
    Date posted: 9/17/2009 10:45:47 PM
    Hometown: Bellefonte, Pa.

    Comment:

    No Paul, this is the health insurance - as it exists today - that those in Washington, with our backing, are trying to change. If you read the news, or listened to the presiden't speech, the Health Care Reform bill says - in part - that this is EXACTLY what insurance companies will not be able to do in the future.

  • Name: Olin Blankenship
    Date posted: 9/17/2009 10:43:05 PM
    Hometown: Bellefonte, Pa.

    Comment:

    No Paul, this is the health insurance - as it exists today - that those in Washington, with our backing, are trying to change. If you read the news, or listened to the presiden't speech, the Health Care Reform bill says - in part - that this is EXACTLY what insurance companies will not be able to do in the future.

  • Name: paul
    Date posted: 9/17/2009 9:51:55 PM
    Hometown: kansas city

    Comment:

    this is the health insurance that the wingnuts are trying to preserve? Ain't America great??



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