MetLife Defeats Benefits Suit Tied to In-Home Dialysis Accident

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. properly declined to pay $170,000 in accidental death benefits to a man whose wife died following an error during an in-home dialysis treatment, a federal court ruled.

MetLife’s plan excludes coverage for incidents in which the treatment of a physical illness “contributed to” a covered beneficiary’s death. It wasn’t an abuse of discretion for MetLife to apply this exclusion to an accident that occurred during a kidney disease treatment, Judge John R. Tunheim said Tuesday for the US District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Dana Kleinsteuber was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease in 2021 and ...