Life insurance that pays a life benefit: Aetna Life EssentialsSM
Aetna Life Essentials offers you a new life “story” by providing new value for consumers. This is an expanded program that enables life insurance members to reap benefits and access services while they’re still living, but provides critical caring and support resources for often overlooked needs at the end-of-life stage. These programs and services are available to our group life customers.
Our fresh look at life and life insurance
By providing greater value to members throughout their lives, we enhance the value of our life insurance offering. That means we can help your business with a fresh perspective on life insurance coverage.
Aetna Life Essentials is not insurance. It provides you and your employees with the life insurance benefits you expect and more. It’s a program that, in addition to death benefits, gives you access to resources you may need:
*Living benefits — during your life.
*End-of-life benefits — at the end of your life.
*Beneficiary benefits — after you've passed away, to help the ones you love.
We’ve grouped these offerings into four categories to be delivered the way consumers experience life:
Category details
Financial: Members have access to financial advice and planning for themselves and their beneficiaries.* Also included is an enhanced Accelerated Death Benefit (ADB) feature that allows the member to have access to as much as 75 percent of their combined basic and supplemental life benefit amounts, to a maximum of $500,000, in the event that person has a terminal illness with a life expectancy of 24 months or less. The enhanced ADB feature will become available to current members upon the group’s renewal date.
Legal: Members have access to online estate planning tools through the Legal Reference™ program, which includes living wills, health care power of attorney forms, durable financial power of attorney forms and the ability to create a basic will, all at no cost to the member. The Legal Reference program also provides information on how to prevent identity theft and includes a Victim Action Kit if a person is victimized by identity theft.
Physical: We offer members programs and discounts in an effort to improve quality of life and promote a healthy lifestyle. Members have access to vision, hearing and fitness center discounts, among others, to help keep them active and healthy longer.
Emotional: Aetna Life Essentials provides access to our Compassionate Care website which allows the member or their caregivers to obtain information on how to deal with and talk about end-of-life issues. The program also provides telephonic bereavement and grief counseling services to members and their immediate family and/or primary caregivers who are suffering from a terminal illness, as well as beneficiaries of deceased life members.
For members suffering from a terminal illness condition, Aetna also provides direct access to a licensed social worker through its Life Care Advocacy Services. Life Care Advocacy Services, which provide emotional support, education and connection to local and national resources, are available to all Group Life members eligible for an Accelerated Death Benefit (ADB) payment. By offering a social worker, Aetna can provide both the member and their caregivers with information and access to many often needed publicly funded services during difficult periods in life (e.g., home and hospice care; home-delivered meals; support groups; mental health resources and financial resources for medication; and health care and transportation). Aetna medical members who also carry Aetna Group Life coverage receive other valuable Aetna benefits via Aetna NavigatorTM, DocFind®, Case Management Services and the Compassionate Care Program, as appropriate.
Note: The Aetna Life Essentials program is a bundle of service enhancements and cannot be easily unbundled or customized. As such, you must decide whether to communicate the program in its entirety or not at all to your employees.
How to obtain more information
Learn more about Aetna Life Essentials. When you enter your information, a “thank you” box will appear that includes an informational flyer and a white paper about consumers’ impressions of life insurance.
You may also contact your broker or Aetna representative for more details.