thedrifter
12-19-06, 02:13 PM
December 25, 2006
Father fights for daughter’s insurance payout
Killer’s family could otherwise be eneficiaries
By Karen Jowers
Staff writer
For Army Staff Sgt. William Neverette, living with the brutal murder of his 18-year-old daughter at the hands of her soldier husband is difficult enough.
But he’s also fighting to keep her killer’s father from collecting her $100,000 Family Servicemembers Group Life Insurance payout.
The soldier, Spc. Brandon Bare, was convicted in May of premeditated murder for stabbing his wife, Nabila, to death and mutilating her body in July 2005. By law, he cannot receive the life insurance payout on his wife’s policy — but under current rules, the money could go to his family.
Neverette has hired a lawyer and is contesting that claim in court, saying he sees it as a matter of justice and fairness.
“No amount of money will ever replace my daughter,” said Neverette, a drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Ga. “[But] when a soldier kills his own wife, the beneficiary should be her family, not his family. This is wrong, and something needs to be said to Congress … to change this.”
Neverette said he and his wife, Irene, are struggling with about $20,000 of debt, mostly related to their daughter’s death, including funeral expenses, which have almost ruined his credit. He said he needs the insurance money to pay off those bills.
Steve Wurtz, deputy assistant director of insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said the rules are all spelled out in law. “One of the precepts of the Family SGLI program is that the service member is always the beneficiary,” Wurtz said.
Family SGLI is tied to the Servicemembers Group Life Insurance program for uniformed personnel, requiring troops to be signed up for their own SGLI coverage before they are allowed to take out policies of up to $100,000 on spouses.
A service member who is legally responsible for a spouse’s death is prohibited from receiving the insurance money. But under a law specific to the SGLI program, the next in line to get the money would be the service member’s beneficiaries on his SGLI policy, Wurtz said.
Neverette said officials told him his daughter was listed as a beneficiary of half of Bare’s SGLI policy, with each of Bare’s parents to receive 25 percent. With Neverette’s daughter dead, Bare’s parents would be his sole beneficiaries.
As such, if Neverette had not contested the claim in August 2005, the $100,000 payout would have gone to Bare’s parents.
Wurtz said that in cases like this, “when another party is contesting the claim, the SGLI office is never going to make a payment first,” and sends the matter to court.
The SGLI office gets about two such cases a year, he said.
The question of who ultimately will get the money from Nabila Bare’s life insurance policy was put on hold pending the outcome of the trial and is now tied up in court, although SGLI officials are still trying to do what they can to resolve the case.
An SGLI attorney sent a letter to Bare’s father dated Dec. 8, asking if he and his son would release claims to the insurance money. Neverette received a copy of the letter Dec. 13.
Neverette said Bare and his father so far have shown no willingness to release their claim to the money. Bare’s father has an unlisted phone number and couldn’t be reached for comment.
Steven Weisbart, an economist for the Insurance Information Institute, said it is difficult to generalize what would happen in such cases in the civilian world, because state laws vary widely.
But beneficiaries named on insurance policies trump any will, and federal law trumps state law, Wurtz said. So even if a state’s laws prohibit insurance money from going to a murderer’s beneficiaries, officials have to follow federal law relating to SGLI.
Civilian cases also are hard to compare because insurers usually do not require the person buying the policy be the sole named beneficiary.
If this happened to a service member who bought insurance through the Navy Mutual Aid Association, for example, the payout would have gone to the victim's estate in accordance with state law.
“Beneficiaries under the service member’s policy have nothing to do with beneficiaries under the spouse's policy,” said Mike McHugh, vice president of membership for the Navy Mutual Aid Association. “Those are two separate designations.”
If a killer is listed as the sole beneficiary on the victim’s policy, the payment would revert to the victim’s next of kin as defined by law — children (or their descendents), then parents (or their survivors), then the estate. Brandon and Nabila Bare had no children.
Brandon Bare’s mother died shortly after his trial. Neverette said Bare’s father has told him he needs part of the money to set up a spending account for his son while he’s in prison.
To Neverette, that means “Brandon Bare would benefit from killing my daughter.”
“It’s not fair that my family has had to pay out of pocket for my daughter’s death,” he said. “Her husband caused this.”
Staff writer Michelle Tan contributed to this report.
Ellie
Father fights for daughter’s insurance payout
Killer’s family could otherwise be eneficiaries
By Karen Jowers
Staff writer
For Army Staff Sgt. William Neverette, living with the brutal murder of his 18-year-old daughter at the hands of her soldier husband is difficult enough.
But he’s also fighting to keep her killer’s father from collecting her $100,000 Family Servicemembers Group Life Insurance payout.
The soldier, Spc. Brandon Bare, was convicted in May of premeditated murder for stabbing his wife, Nabila, to death and mutilating her body in July 2005. By law, he cannot receive the life insurance payout on his wife’s policy — but under current rules, the money could go to his family.
Neverette has hired a lawyer and is contesting that claim in court, saying he sees it as a matter of justice and fairness.
“No amount of money will ever replace my daughter,” said Neverette, a drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Ga. “[But] when a soldier kills his own wife, the beneficiary should be her family, not his family. This is wrong, and something needs to be said to Congress … to change this.”
Neverette said he and his wife, Irene, are struggling with about $20,000 of debt, mostly related to their daughter’s death, including funeral expenses, which have almost ruined his credit. He said he needs the insurance money to pay off those bills.
Steve Wurtz, deputy assistant director of insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said the rules are all spelled out in law. “One of the precepts of the Family SGLI program is that the service member is always the beneficiary,” Wurtz said.
Family SGLI is tied to the Servicemembers Group Life Insurance program for uniformed personnel, requiring troops to be signed up for their own SGLI coverage before they are allowed to take out policies of up to $100,000 on spouses.
A service member who is legally responsible for a spouse’s death is prohibited from receiving the insurance money. But under a law specific to the SGLI program, the next in line to get the money would be the service member’s beneficiaries on his SGLI policy, Wurtz said.
Neverette said officials told him his daughter was listed as a beneficiary of half of Bare’s SGLI policy, with each of Bare’s parents to receive 25 percent. With Neverette’s daughter dead, Bare’s parents would be his sole beneficiaries.
As such, if Neverette had not contested the claim in August 2005, the $100,000 payout would have gone to Bare’s parents.
Wurtz said that in cases like this, “when another party is contesting the claim, the SGLI office is never going to make a payment first,” and sends the matter to court.
The SGLI office gets about two such cases a year, he said.
The question of who ultimately will get the money from Nabila Bare’s life insurance policy was put on hold pending the outcome of the trial and is now tied up in court, although SGLI officials are still trying to do what they can to resolve the case.
An SGLI attorney sent a letter to Bare’s father dated Dec. 8, asking if he and his son would release claims to the insurance money. Neverette received a copy of the letter Dec. 13.
Neverette said Bare and his father so far have shown no willingness to release their claim to the money. Bare’s father has an unlisted phone number and couldn’t be reached for comment.
Steven Weisbart, an economist for the Insurance Information Institute, said it is difficult to generalize what would happen in such cases in the civilian world, because state laws vary widely.
But beneficiaries named on insurance policies trump any will, and federal law trumps state law, Wurtz said. So even if a state’s laws prohibit insurance money from going to a murderer’s beneficiaries, officials have to follow federal law relating to SGLI.
Civilian cases also are hard to compare because insurers usually do not require the person buying the policy be the sole named beneficiary.
If this happened to a service member who bought insurance through the Navy Mutual Aid Association, for example, the payout would have gone to the victim's estate in accordance with state law.
“Beneficiaries under the service member’s policy have nothing to do with beneficiaries under the spouse's policy,” said Mike McHugh, vice president of membership for the Navy Mutual Aid Association. “Those are two separate designations.”
If a killer is listed as the sole beneficiary on the victim’s policy, the payment would revert to the victim’s next of kin as defined by law — children (or their descendents), then parents (or their survivors), then the estate. Brandon and Nabila Bare had no children.
Brandon Bare’s mother died shortly after his trial. Neverette said Bare’s father has told him he needs part of the money to set up a spending account for his son while he’s in prison.
To Neverette, that means “Brandon Bare would benefit from killing my daughter.”
“It’s not fair that my family has had to pay out of pocket for my daughter’s death,” he said. “Her husband caused this.”
Staff writer Michelle Tan contributed to this report.
Ellie