Death Benefits

Robert Mannheim was stunned when he found out that strangers wanted to lend his mother in West Los Angeles money to buy her a $2-million life insurance policy and pay her premiums. The deal got better after two years: She would sign over her death benefits to investors and collect $200,000. The idea of leveraging the value of her newly acquired insurance into a big cash payoff tickled Selma Mannheim, a child of the Great Depression, who knows the importance of having money in the bank.

Two women in their 70s charged with befriending, insuring and then killing two men for $2.5 million in death benefits tried to buy policies covering three other men, investigators said Thursday. The women "fattened these people up like Christmas turkeys -- it's beyond bizarre," said Los Angeles Police Det. Dennis P. Kilcoyne, the chief investigator on the case. The three newly identified men, all described as transients, are being sought by police.

Former Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay member of Congress, was married to another man in Massachusetts at the time of his death, but the federal government will not pay death benefits to his spouse. Dean Hara, who married Studds in 2004 after gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, will not be eligible to receive any portion of Studds' estimated $114,337 annual pension because the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act bars the federal government from recognizing Studds' marriage.

After a five-year fight, the U.S. government has dropped its effort to prevent a volunteer firefighter killed at the World Trade Center from receiving a federal death benefit for public safety officers who die on the job. The decision is a belated victory for the family of Glenn Winuk, 40, a longtime member of the Jericho Fire Department who rushed to the burning towers on Sept. 11, 2001, to tend to victims. Winuk's body was found in the rubble long after the skyscrapers collapsed.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is working to quell a political firestorm over death and disability benefits for public employees -- even while accusing unions that oppose him of spreading "propaganda." The governor is on the defensive about his plan to overhaul California's public pension system, after police and firefighters seized on a critical part of the proposal, saying it would end death and disability benefits for public safety officers hired after June 2007.

The U.S. military said Friday that it would begin providing increased death benefits to the next of kin of military personnel killed in combat zones or in combat-related training. In May, President Bush signed into law the increase in the death benefit from $12,000 to $100,000. The military announced implementation of the law Friday. The increase was part of an $82-billion emergency appropriations bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The families of U.S. soldiers killed in action or in accidents during the Iraq war are eligible for death benefits that could range from $250,000 to more than $800,000. The benefits are generally extended to the people who would have relied on the service member's income for economic security, and some can endure for the lifetime of the survivor. Dependent children are eligible for additional compensation, although many of those benefits are terminated if a surviving spouse remarries.

Good news for our soldiers wounded in Iraq. They're not going to have to pay for their own meals anymore during their recovery stays in military hospitals. And good news for the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11. Survivors' death payments are going to be doubled to $12,000. Tax free. A bill eliminating the $8.10 a day wounded soldiers were paying for their hospital meals and another that increases next of kin death benefits have been passed by the U.S.

Gloria Wolk got involved in the AIDS crisis while walking her dog. Shortly after a neighbor asked if he could join her on her daily strolls, the Laguna Hills-based life insurance agent learned that "this handsome young man" was dying. Wolk, a divorcee with three grown children, began to volunteer at an AIDS help organization, where she met more young men--and a few young women--who were dying too.

As their lawsuit against the L.A. Unified School District inches its way toward resolution, the family of Eric Hoggatt takes comfort in knowing that steps have been taken to reduce football-related head injuries. Hoggatt, a Reseda High senior running back, died in his sleep last September the morning after he complained of dizziness and numbness during a game against Chatsworth. Hoggatt was benched by a team physician late in the game, but the player's family was never told of his symptoms.