SALT LAKE CITY – People who say they are sick with certain illnesses can jump in the front line for a COVID-19 vaccine. If that person shows up to take a photo, no one will ask for proof. It’s all on the honor system, Utah and county health officials have said.
But even if there is no legal consequence, people who lie can indeed be punished. The KSL researchers found that there could even be a financial fine for lying about being sick in order to receive a vaccine.
Telling a regional health department that you have a comorbidity creates a health record. And medical records are a favorite tool for insurance companies to determine if you are worthy of life insurance.
“If it’s on your medical records, that life insurance company assumes it’s true,” said Brian King, a lawyer who specializes in fighting life insurance companies to get them to pay claims.
King said having a serious medical condition listed in medical records could mean anything from having to pay more for life insurance to not qualifying for life insurance at all. It can even give a life insurance company an excuse not to pay your family after you die.
“People don’t think about this,” said King. ‘They don’t think about their future. They look at the immediate need or desire to cross the line and get vaccinated sooner rather than later. It can come back and bite you really hard. ‘
(People) don’t think about their future. They look at the immediate need or desire that they have to jump the line and get vaccinated sooner rather than later. It can come back and bite you very hard.
–Brian King, lawyer
Utah Rep. Norm Thurston, R-Provo, worked on many insurance-related laws during his time on the hill. He has seen that what is in someone’s medical records can be incredibly expensive for them.
“Insurance companies regularly ask for medical records,” said Thurston.
Thurston said people routinely lie about their life insurance applications to keep premiums low, for example by claiming not to smoke when they do. This would be the opposite: lying about being sicker.
Thurston said this area is a bit unknown and time will tell how many life insurance companies rely on medical records created during the vaccination process in determining a client’s risk. But he agreed with King that it is conceivable that it could cost someone his insurance.
“If someone writes on the form, ‘I have diabetes’ or ‘I have uncontrolled blood pressure,’ that form would create a record and the life insurance company could go and get that,” Thurston said.
Medical records, of course, are not public records, and health departments will not share them with life insurance companies without a patient’s consent. But a life insurance company can refuse to insure that patient if they refuse to give permission to view medical records.
“We expect people to be honest,” Nick Rupp, spokesman for the Salt Lake County health department, told KSL TV, even though he knows that expectation is a bit of pie in the air.
The county met with liars even before the criteria were expanded to allow people with certain co-morbidities to get the vaccine in Utah.
“We’ve had a few people who have already lied through the system about their date of birth to qualify earlier than they should be,” he said.