Assurant is a specialty insurance company headquartered in New York City. Assurant’s businesses provide a unique variety of products and services that assure opportunity, security and peace of mind for its customers. Assurant's strategy is to manage a select portfolio of specialty businesses that are leaders in their markets. The company provides creditor-placed homeowners insurance; manufactured housing homeowners insurance; debt protection administration; credit insurance; warranties and extended services contracts; individual health and small employer group health insurance; group dental insurance; group disability insurance; group life insurance; and pre-funded funeral insurance. ^[4]

Operations

Assurant operates four main businesses:

• Assurant Health writes individual and short-term health insurance and small employer group health insurance to employer groups primarily of two to 40 employees. ^[5]

• Assurant Employee Benefits provides employer-sponsored benefits programs, including long- and short-term disability, dental, term life and accidental death and dismemberment insurance. The company also offers voluntary (employee-paid) dental, disability and term life product solutions. ^[6]

• Assurant Solutions develops, underwrites, and markets specialty insurance, extended service contracts and other risk management solutions in collaborative relationships with leading financial institutions, retailers, automobile dealers, utilities, funeral homes and other entities. Principal lines of business include debt protection administration, credit insurance, preneed life insurance, and warranties and extended service contracts on appliances, consumer electronics, automobiles, recreational vehicles and boats. ^[7]

• Assurant Specialty Property provides creditor-placed homeowners insurance, collateral protection programs, renters insurance and related outsourcing services. They develop, underwrite, market and administer specialty property and personal lines of insurance through collaborative relationships with leading home mortgage companies, manufactured home builders and dealers, auto finance companies, property management companies and managing general agents. ^[8]

Assurant in the community

The Assurant companies have deep roots in diverse communities across the United States and abroad. Through contributions and employee volunteer programs, Assurant works to fight illness and disease, promote education, aid and protect children, and prevent hunger and homelessness.

The Assurant Foundation is a charitable trust started in 1982 to provide charitable grants to improve the quality of life in communities served. Each of the Assurant companies participate in local programs while regularly supporting nationally recognized charities such as United Way, Habitat for Humanity, Share Our Strength and the American Red Cross. ^[9]

Health policy claim denials and cancellations

Assurant Health has been repeatedly found to cancel health policies for some customers that have serious medical conditions, and 12 states have criticized the firm for denying claims, with most of the states levying fines against Assurant. ^{[10] [11] [12]}

In September 2009, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s verdict and ordered Assurant Health (then known as "Fortis") to pay $10 million to policyholder Jerome Mitchell, who had contracted HIV subsequent to getting an insurance policy through Assurant Health. In court proceedings, it was revealed that the company's policy was to target every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke (" rescind") their policy. As in Mitchell’s case, their insurance policies often were canceled on incorrect information, flimsy evidence, or for no reason at all. ^[13]

In February 2010, a Boulder, Colorado jury found that Assurant Health had breached its contract with Jennifer Latham, a 40-year-old mother of four who was severely injured in a hit-and-run accident, and awarded Latham $183,551 for medical bills and approximately 37.1 million dollars in punitive damages. This was described as "one of the largest bad-faith judgments in Colorado history". ^[14]

In March 2010, the US Supreme Court rejected Assurant Health’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that awarded $10 million to a South Carolina customer whose policy was cancelled by the company when he tested positive for HIV. ^[15]

References

External links

• Company homepage
• Assurant Employee Benefits
• Assurant Health
• Assurant Specialty Property
• Assurant Solutions
• Google Finance, Profile