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VA life insurance limit called inadequate

An Indiana Democrat thinks a veterans life insurance program that hasn’t had an increase in coverage in 58 years needs an update.

Rep. Joe Donnelly said a VA group life insurance program for disabled veterans that offers just $10,000 is “outdated.”

He wants maximum coverage increased to $100,000, and for every disabled veteran to have a chance to sign up for the higher coverage, regardless of whether they now carry the group insurance.

He also wants veterans who are 100 percent service-disabled to be eligible for $50,000 in supplemental insurance coverage, a $30,000 jump over the current supplemental coverage.

And he wants the age-based premiums — which range from 19 cents to $8.16 per $1,000 — to be revised based on updated mortality tables, a move that likely would cut costs.

Tables now are based on the assumption that disabled vets die, on average, at age 58, which Donnelly said is no longer true given improvements in medicine, treatment and rehabilitation in the last 58 years.

Disabled veterans now are expected to live an average of 70 years.

Donnelly introduced a bill on Thursday that would make these changes, HR 2713, which was referred for consideration to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, on which Donnelly serves.

The Service Disabled Veterans Insurance program was created in 1951 as a way for veterans who couldn’t get or afford commercial policies because of their service-connected disabilities to obtain life insurance for their families.

Veterans groups have argued for years that the coverage isn’t enough, but efforts to increase the amount have not gained traction in Congress.

In their annual independent budget, major veterans groups support the idea of cutting premiums for the insurance, known as S-DVI, and note that the mortality tables may be even more outdated than Donnelly suggests.

The insurance program started in 1951 but used a 1941 mortality chart to set premiums, according to a report earlier this year on needed benefits improvements. As a result, S-DVI is no longer competitive with commercial insurance, the report says.

And while the $10,000 maximum coverage was part of the S-DVI program from its 1951 start, the amount actually has not changed since the government first offered this kind of insurance in 1917.

The $100,000 maximum proposed by Donnelly is larger than the $50,000 maximum coverage suggested in the independent budget.