$17 million in death benefits wasn't paid to Texas families
Donald Coit Smith believes that Texas insurance companies profited after his 22-year-old son was electrocuted in an industrial accident, all because of state laws that regulate the payment of death benefits through workers' compensation. For his loss, Smith got $6,000 to bury his son. Additionally, Smith was told that the workers' compensation death benefit, $100,500 would not be paid to grieving family members because his oldest child, Donald W. Smith had no wife or children. Instead, the money, paid by his employer's insurance company, went to a state workers' comp fund. More than $17 million in workers' compensation benefits bypassed the relatives of as many as 140 dead workers from 2003 to 2006. All of that money ended up in a workers' comp fund where $10 million was then funneled back to insurance companies, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data. Coit Smith, who has 20 years of experience as an industrial safety specialist, calls the payments "blood money." "I feel it's immoral, what they did with that money," Smith said.
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