William of Reidsville , NC on Dec. 5, 2010
My father passed away in April of 2002, and he had always taken care of the financial matters of the household. He was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor in 1990. He was in a comma for approximately 3 months after having laser surgery to remove the tumor that had gotten the size of a grapefruit and had intertwined itself around his optic nerves. He then had to be transferred to Lynchburg Memorial Hospital to learn how to eat, write, walk, talk and manage his need in the restroom as much as possible. He then was left disabled with limited use of his, legs, left arm and limited vision. He was left without an immune system, which required him to have to take steroids to try and maintain him. He lasted 11 years which required my mother to work full time and attend to all his needs during that period of time. During the period my dad survived, he again took control of handling financial concerns. Amazingly, his mind was as good as ever right to the very end.
This took a very emotional, stressful, fatiguing and frightening toll on my mother, who is the victim of the scam that Bankers Life agent Kenneth ** used her emotional loss of my Father of 49 years. She also had a morbid fear of being left in a nursing home. She was very depressed over the loss of my father for over 2 years. I helped her with her financial needs as well as her needs of maintaining the home. Then when no one else is around, Mr. ** and his trainee would show up. By doing his home work with neighbors, he tried to sell policies, too, he found out about my mother's situation. Coming into the home knowing about my mother's situation, compounded by him using her morbid fear of being left in a nursing home, that he talked out of her while doing his sales pitch/condolences. He got my mother on an emotional treadmill she was afraid to get off.
This began July of 2002, while she was still mourning the loss of my father. She spent most of her days crying, sad, and depressed over my father's death. Mr. ** discussed the loss of my father, calling himself, comforting her, and all the while preying on her very emotional state to start the process of convincing her if she bought this so-called Qualified LTC, home care policy, assuring her that if the same type of thing happened to her, she would not have someone by her side as my dad had, and over a period of three separate visits, frightened her into agreeing to this policy that would assure her she would never have to spend a day in a nursing home from the day she was released from the hospital, that they would have a nurse, nurse's aide, and a housekeeper to come to her home and care for 24 hours a day from day one until she recovered or passed away. They further assured her she would not have pay a dime for any of these services. Since that time, she has had carotid artery surgery, a heart attack, has fallen twice breaking her ankle, and another time fracturing a vertebrae. She was also in a car accident in which she was T-boned totaling her car, causing a massive trauma to her body, requiring her to have to be hospitalized again.
Each time, Bankers Life told her she had a 2-week period of time during which she would have to hire the people she needed to care for her. At that point, they said she would have to pay for those 2 weeks out of her pocket. During this period that said that they would investigate her case to see if she qualified for the policy benefits. I stayed with her for approximately 5 months to help her any way I could and my sister-in-law took care of her baths and housekeeping for approximately 60 days. My sister did most of her shopping and picking up her medications. Each time, Bankers Life stated that she did not qualify for any services unless she was virtually bedridden. They also said they would only have a person there to help with her baths and monitor her health issues for a maximum of 8 hours per day. They further stated the person would feed her with her own food and would not clean the house or cook the meals. If my mother is virtually bedridden, how the ** is she supposed to prepare meals or even insure someone brings in food for her to be fed.
It took me four months of calling, leaving messages and being told by Mr. ** that he would rectify this problem and get her qualified, and in every occurrence, we would have to take care of my mother because she could not afford to pay for the 2 weeks out of pocket. My mother held on to the policy on the outside chance she became bedridden and did somehow manage to take advantage of the policy since she has a morbid fear of being left at the mercy of nursing home staff. This morbid fear came from her being unable to take her mother in during the 11-year period she was having to work and care for my father. During the time she had to visit her mother at the hospital, she found her mother bound to her bed, lying in pools of urine and fecal matter with her food tray setting on the table and her unable to feed herself and no one offering to assist. When questioning the staff, they were understaffed and unable to attend to everyone's needs as they should.
On several occasions my mother over heard staff members cursing my grandmother telling her to shut when she complained about her care. They would also threaten her with tying her down if she did not stop complaining. My mother carried all those years of guilt over this treatment of her mother since she could only see occasionally and could not afford to pay for a better facility for her mother. This is why she hang on to this scam as long a she did because Mr. ** kept telling her it would pay her to have this policy. He used my dad's and my grandmother's situation to keep her frightened into keeping until the one day, I was finally able to convince her to cancel the policy in April of this year.
