John Hancock Death Benefits Class Action Lawsuit
By Matt O’Donnell
John Hancock Life Insurance Company is facing a potential class action lawsuit accusing the company of failing to pay out death benefits. The lawsuit comes just four months after the insurer agreed to pay six states $13.3 million to settle allegations it didn’t work hard enough to pay life insurance benefits.
Lead plaintiff Richard Feingold alleges in the class action lawsuit that John Hancock immediately halts payments to annuity holders after they die by routinely checking the Social Security Administration’s master death list, but fails to check the same database to see if a life insurance policy holder has died so the company can promptly pay beneficiaries.
Feingold, whose mother died in 2006, says he didn’t know his mother had life insurance or that he was owed death benefits until four years later when he discovered through the Illinois treasurer’s website that he had unclaimed property owed to him from John Hancock.
According to the class action lawsuit, John Hancock only paid Feingold the money after he contacted the company about it, but refused to provide him a copy of his mother’s policy or an explanation of the benefits he received. As a result, Feingold doesn’t know whether he received all the money owed to him. It’s a situation many other John Hancock life insurance beneficiaries may have found themselves in, his attorney says.
The company has asked the court to dismiss the class action lawsuit, saying in a statement, “The vast majority of our contract and policy holder benefits are paid in a timely manner. We are pleased to further strengthen efforts to locate beneficiaries in those relatively small number of cases where claims are not submitted.”
The John Hancock Life Insurance class action lawsuit comes on the heels of a $13.3 million settlement reached in November between the company and six states that investigated the insurer’s death benefit payout practices. The settlement requires Hancock to run the Social Security Death Master File and similar databases monthly to determine whether their policy holders have died.
Several other insurers, including AIG, MetLife and Prudential, have reached similar settlements with states after audits revealed they were utilizing these databases to cease payments to deceased annuity holders but not to identify deceased life policyholders and payout death benefits.
The John Hancock Death Benefits Class Action Lawsuit case is Richard Feingold v. John Hancock Life Insurance Company, Case No. 13-cv-10185, U.S. District Court Massachusetts, Boston.
Updated March 21st, 2013
All class action and lawsuit news updates are listed in the Lawsuit News section of Top Class Actions
Cellphone wrong-number robocalls could be worth $500-$1,500 per violation of the federal TCPA
December 12, 2025 | TCPA Class Action Lawsuits
One thought on John Hancock Death Benefits Class Action Lawsuit
Yeap! The same thing happened to me. John Hancock NEVER notified me OR my parents, of being the benefitury to 3 life insurance policies that I had to find on Unclaimed Property websites. What gets me is, my parents did not move around a lot, so they were easy to find at any time, even before the internet. If it wasn’t for Clark Howard’s radio show in Atlanta Georgia, I’d still not know about the policies not having been paid out to me.