Death Audit & CertiDeath

The Ultimate Guide to Finding Decedents in the Insurance Industry

How to identify decedents efficiently and effectively without a single and comprehensive data source. Insurance companies deal with a variety of challenges when managing their policyholders (life, long term care, PRT, structured settlements, annuitants), with inaccurate or missing participant data being the most impactful. Incorrect information affects how insurance companies communicate with policyholders, accurate forecasting of risk, the number of overpayments made, access to information when a Department of Labor [...]

John Bikus2024-04-26T15:04:57-05:00April 12th, 2023|Death Audit & CertiDeath, Insurance|

Case Study: PBI Research Services Finds Over $200,000 in Overpayments for a Public Pension Fund

Each year, Public Pension Fund (PPF) pays out more than $2.8 Billion in pensions to more than 100,000 retirees and their beneficiaries. Challenge: For years, PPF worked with a third party to identify decedents. On average, they would receive 100 to 150 identified deaths per month, but PPF in further review discovered they were missing decedents and were potentially making overpayments. In addition, they struggled with the user experience their third party provided. It [...]

John Bikus2023-06-15T10:25:50-05:00February 23rd, 2023|Case Studies, Death Audit & CertiDeath, Pensions|

Case Study: PBI Research Services Saves Michigan Public Employee Union Pension Thousands

The Michigan Education Association (MEA) is a self-governing education association representing about 120,000 teachers, education support professionals and higher-education employees throughout the state. The association has grown from their inception in 1852. Today, they offer public school employees healthcare through MESSA, as well as retirement and insurance programs through Michigan Education Association Financial Services (MEA Financial Services). Challenge Over the past few years, the MEA pension system, the Staff Retirement Plan (SRP), has struggled [...]

John Bikus2023-06-15T10:28:39-05:00February 21st, 2023|Case Studies, Death Audit & CertiDeath, Pensions|

Why the DMF isn’t Adequate for Insurance Companies

Identifying deaths has become harder for insurance companies. In 2011, a change to the SSA Death Master File (DMF) fundamentally altered the Death Audit landscape resulting in challenges to Death Audit providers accompanied by a significantly increased burden placed on insurance companies to accurately identify deaths of policyholders. Because of this, missed deaths are leading to overpayments for insurance companies in their Pension Risk Transfer (PRT) and Structured Settlements lines of business. In Long Term Care (LTC), [...]

John Bikus2024-05-01T14:24:57-05:00February 9th, 2023|Death Audit & CertiDeath, Insurance|

The Hard Truth on Pension Participant Data Management & How to Set Your Plan Up for Success

Pension plans have no idea how inaccurate or out-of-date their participant data is and it is costing them millions every year. Even with a robust and experienced internal team maintaining and updating participant data, it is nearly impossible to keep participant information accurate and up-to-date. Participants will be missing. There are a variety of reasons so many organizations struggle with bad data including the lack of a comprehensive data source, staffing issues, the lack [...]

John Bikus2024-05-01T14:23:03-05:00November 11th, 2022|Death Audit & CertiDeath, Pensions, Population Management & CertiCensus|