MONTREAL — A lawyer who was turned down for his first life insurance policy because he travelled to a supposedly dangerous part of Israel will be issued a policy after all after the company reversed its decision.
Medavie Blue Cross group representative Jean-Pierre Carbonneau told The CJN that the rejection of Dan Goldstein’s application was due to the mistake of reinsurers who confused Hebron – which is in disputed territory – with Holon, a Tel Aviv suburb that Goldstein and his family travel to annually.
Reinsurance, Carbonneau explained, is how insurance companies “spread risk” among themselves by, in effect, insuring themselves against too much risk.
“They mistook Holon for Hebron,” Carbonneau said of the reinsurers, and “people here [at Medavie Blue Cross] didn’t question anything. They turned it down because they thought it was [in] occupied territory.”
Goldstein told The CJN last week that he received word from an agent with the insurance brokerage firm of Michel Rhéaume & Associés that Medavie Blue Cross had reversed its decision as of Nov. 16.
Goldstein, 35, will receive life and accidental death insurance, but no long-term disability coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions.
He requested and obtained from Medavie Blue Cross all the details related to his case based on full disclosure rights in law.
“The truth is that as far as being a [Jewish] community issue or a case of discrimination, that no longer appears to be the case,” Goldstein said. “It could have been a real mix-up and source of embarrassment, and it gave them an opportunity to back-track.”
Irwin Rudick, president of the Lord Reading Society, comprising Jewish lawyers and jurists, was also satisfied by Medavie Blue Cross’ reversal.
The policy Goldstein applied for is offered at preferred rates to all members of the Quebec Bar. Goldstein isn’t a Lord Reading member, but the society struck a committee to investigate his case.
“I can tell you that our board was very sympathetic, even though Goldstein doesn’t happen to be a member,” Rudick said. “We still take an interest in issues affecting Jewish jurists. That was our board’s spontaneous feeling about it.”
He said Quebec Jewish Congress also monitored the case.
“If there was some kind of misapprehension or misunderstanding and that’s been clarified, so much the better,” Rudick said. “If there was some kind of mistake in terms of geography and that mistake was rectified, I’m perfectly satisfied by it.”
Still, Goldstein could not help wondering whether other elements came into play regarding his application.
The mixing up of place names “could have been an easy excuse to avoid controversy,” Goldstein speculated, noting that correspondence he had received contained spelling changes from the incorrect “Holoun” to the corrected “Holon.”
“If they figured out how to spell it, they also must have figured out where it was on a map,” he said.
Goldstein said his initial application could have been accepted even if it had said “Hebron,” because insurance policies often have clauses that deny benefits in the event of “undeclared acts of war,” such as terrorism.
