Important info for Survivors from Ev Gost of
the DDPSA:
RE: Miscommunication from Employee Service Center
Hi Mark,
I want to bring you up to date
on a problem that survivors may encounter when applying for survivor benefits
and the suggestions that we have to avoid that problem.
A couple of months ago, DDPSA
had to correct a problem that was a result of miscommunications from the Delta
Employee Service Center (ESC). A survivor of a Delta pilot called the ESC to
report the death of her husband and to request the application for survivor
benefits from the Delta Pilots Disability and Survivorship (D&S) Plan. The
ESC representative told her that she was not eligible for the monthly income
survivor benefit. She contacted DDPSA for assistance.
The fact that she had been
married to the pilot for more than 12 months prior to his retirement and continuously
married to the pilot until the date of his death confirmed that she met the
eligibility requirements specified in the D&S Plan. Because the ESC
occasionally fails to recognize the difference between the Delta Pilots D&S
Plan and the Family Care (non-pilot) D&S Plan, we suggested that she
contact the ESC again and emphasize that she is the survivor of a Delta pilot.
When she called the ESC again
emphasizing that her deceased husband had been a Delta pilot, she was told that
she still was not eligible for the survivor benefit. DDPSA went through our
communication channels with Delta to correct the problem. Within a couple of
days, the survivor received a telephone call from the ESC representative who
had given her the incorrect information. He apologized profusely and confirmed
that she was eligible for the D&S Plan monthly income survivor benefit.
Why does this type of problem
occur within the ESC? First of all, the ESC is not staffed by Delta employees,
but is an outsourced entity. Secondly, the monthly income survivor benefit from
the Pilot D&S Plan is applicable to only a small percentage of the Delta
employee population. The number of survivors eligible for the Pilot D&S
Plan survivor benefit (eligible survivors of pilots who retired before January
1, 2008), is relatively small compared to the number of Delta employees and
retirees who contact the ESC. That probably is the underlying problem relating
to miscommunications from the ESC.
What can survivors do to try to
avoid similar problems when reporting the death of a pilot?
1- Emphasize that you are the surviving spouse of a Delta pilot who
retired before January 1, 2008.
2- Request a case number if you encounter any resistance from the ESC
representative. The case number will require further review and hopefully will
resolve any misunderstandings.
We hope that this information
may be helpful.
Ev Gost
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Under this insurance section, I am, in this
issue re-printing a few helps for pilot survivors and families since we are
unfortunately losing so many of our pilot colleagues. Here at the PCN we have a website with s DL
Survivor Page which links to many many helpful sites and info.
1. PCN Delta Suvivor Page of INFO and Links: http://pcn.homestead.com/DLSurv.html
2. Delta produced Death Checklist for Survivors:
3. ALPA (DAL MEC) produced ‘worksheet’ that can be filled
out and stored for Survivors and Families.
This worksheet is located with the ALPA Ret & Insur Handbook in the
last section: http://pcn.homestead.com/files/Misc_Files/2022_ALPA_Ret-Insur-handbook.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment