A Deepening Debate on Soldiers and Their Insurers
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES

Published: September 8, 2004

In May 2002, a young, unmarried soldier named Michael R. Deuel, serving with the 82nd Airborne division at Fort Bragg, N.C., signed up to pay nearly $120 a month for life insurance that supplemented the much less expensive coverage he had through the military.

But before he shipped out for Iraq, Private Deuel called to cancel some of his coverage because an officer on base "told him he did not need it," according to an insurance agent who served the base. A year later, in June 2003, the 21-year-old soldier was shot and killed while guarding a propane distribution center in Baghdad.

The case of Private Deuel is one of five incidents that some life insurers and their agents have offered as proof that improper meddling by senior officers is preventing young soldiers from getting supplemental insurance coverage before they head for dangerous duty abroad. By their account, thousands of other people in the military - one insurance marketing executive puts the number as high as 6,000 - have had similar experiences and are at risk of sharing Private Deuel's fate.

…The insurance being sold to the soldiers included policies that provided little additional coverage at high prices.

Four of the cases illustrate a little-noticed sales technique used by many insurance agents - selling military people an expensive policy in tandem with a low-cost policy. Agents who complain that soldiers have been wrongly advised to cancel policies do not distinguish between the two types of insurance. In fact, Private Deuel canceled only a policy that would have cost him $100 a month for a death benefit of $32,500, while keeping a $250,000 policy that cost him $18.75 a month.