Dave Pear's Blog

Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire just signed the nation’s most comprehensive return-to-play concussion law for high school sports. The law was named for Zackery Lystedt, a 16-year old high school football player who went back to play following a concussion and subsequently suffered a life-threatening brain injury. All athletes under the age of 18 will now need a licensed health care provider’s approval before being allowed to return to the game after a concussion. The law will also require each of the state’s school districts to work with the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association to develop standards for educating parents, players and coaches of the dangers of concussions and head injuries. (Zackery finally is only partially recovered after over a year of rehab.*)

Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a broader acknowledgment of the long-term effects of concussions and brain injuries from sports in general and football in particular. The NFL has spent much time and money burying their study results for their own ends, including their actuarial numbers which a subsidiary of insurance giant AON has reputedly been conducting for years. Of course, Directors and Officers of AON have also been owners of the Chicago Bears for decades… (Read our earlier posts HERE and HERE or you can simply do a search for Aon on our blog by typing it into the search bar at the top of this website.)

Concussions and brain injuries will be among the many topics discussed at The Summit in Las Vegas May 29 – 31.

In the meantime, you can also read an enlightening interview with sports agent, Leigh Steinberg, HERE, in which he discusses his personal thoughts about concussions.

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Over the summer, the NFLPA offered a 4-month window for retired disabled players to apply or re-apply for their benefits. As many of you know, I was eventually approved for Inactive T&P (Total & Permanent) Disability benefits (but not Football Degenerative T&P benefits). We’re still continuing to file our objections to the Review Board over my original disqualification since 1983. (You can read more about this by clicking HERE and HERE.)

After a lot of foot-dragging, NFLPA Benefits Director, Paul Scott, finally sent me a letter alluding to a “Death Benefit” that many of us had apparently signed up for years ago when we took retirement. This benefit is supposed to provide those meager benefits to our surviving spouses when we die. (Read Paul Scott’s letter to me HERE.) But in spite of years and years of taking unitemized deductions for this “benefit” and even going as far as to hire AON to work out the actuarial factors for each of the players, I can’t seem to find anyone who has so much as looked at a policy or document that spells out the terms of this “benefit.”

So last week, we decided to compose a letter directly to Mr. Gregory Case, current President & CEO of AON Corp. in Chicago. AON (AOC) is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange and has ties to the MacCaskey family and the Chicago Bears. Mr. Case was installed as the new CEO in April 2005 after the company admitted to bid-rigging and price-fixing in three states (in all fairness, so was Marsh & McLennan Cos.), resulting in a public apology to shareholders along with a tidy fine of $190 million. (Read that story in the International Herald Tribune HERE.) While AON may or may not be the Company holding our death benefits ploicy (and money), their deep involvement with the NFL and NFLPA on so many levels would indicate that they should be able to provide me with more information than I’ve received so far from the NFLPA. While we were at it, we also went ahead and CC:’ed the letter to a list of several other potentially interested parties, including the Insurance Commissioners in several states as well as the Attorneys General in several states (many were states where I’ve lived in over the years since I first started applying for my benefits). CEO Greg Case was brought in as a change-agent to replace former CEO Patrick Ryan after the Company settled their charges.

The letters were sent out last Thursday (Sept. 25th) by USPS Priority Mail and it looks like 10 of the letters have already been delivered today.

The CC: list is at the bottom of my letter. Here’s my letter (click on each image to enlarge it for easier reading.)

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After weeks of wrangling and pestering the Commissioner and everyone else who will listen, my attorney, John Hogan, finally got a letter from Paul Scott regarding the deductions taken from my monthly disability check. (Click on an image to enlarge it for easier reading.)

With no further explanation from the NFLPA and Paul Scott, we did a little more investigation on how our Union came up with an actuarial number for my wife and me of .894 (!); HINT: you need insurance people to come up with actuarial numbers. This was used to calculate how much to deduct from my benefits for a policy that will supposedly ensure that my wife, Heidi, will receive my benefits when I pass away. That amounts to $353.40 a month or $4,240.80 a year for a policy that they say I signed on for and has never, ever been disclosed in any of my payments or plan (see an actual copy of a current statement by clicking HERE). Want to bet that I can probably find a cheaper policy somewhere else? Or how about me buying my own term life insurance for $50 a month?

But wait – as usual, it gets better. REALLY better (What else would you expect from these guys?). Our sources tell us that the company underwriting this policy and program is none other than AON Consulting (click to visit their website), apparently the same Chicago insurance company that has, along with companies such as Callan Investments, been responsible for over $150 million in poor investment losses for the NFLPA in recent years. And the Chairman and a director of AON also happen to be 19.7% owners of… The Chicago Bears (along with 80% owners, the McCaskey family), who also happen to have lost a lot of money over the past few years. Conflict-of-interest anyone? So it appears to be another cozy no-bid inside deal with the NFL that’s been forced on the retired players by the Gene Upshaw and the NFLPA. (Read more about side deals from Bernie Parrish’s post on April 15th by clicking HERE.)

I don’t know about you, but even without a business degree it doesn’t take much to figure out that these guys aren’t exactly rocket scientists when it comes to handling anyone’s money. They’re bleeding money all over the place and don’t exactly win my confidence for being the best financial advisers. Forget the fact that we weren’t even consulted on their choice as an insurance provider or told that it had been decided for us. How many of you other guys out there were told that you had money deducted for spousal survivorship? And how many surviving spouses are actually receiving these “guaranteed” benefits today? Oh – and did we mention Conflict-of-Interest?

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