TRENTON, N.J., November 20 – Legislation to increase the death benefits in group life insurance policies for volunteer firemen to $25,000 cleared an Assembly committee and could be voted on in the next month.

The bill, A.3182, would raise the current benefit of $10,000 to $25,000 for fire district or municipalities with volunteer fire departments, according to the sponsors Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Essex County), and Anthony Bucco (R-Denville).

For individual life insurance policies paid for by the towns of fire districts for volunteer firemen, the death benefit remains at $16,500.

The Senate passed the bill 39-0 earlier this year and it is combined with A.3182.

The bill was released for full Assembly vote by the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee.

The committee also released for future floor vote two other bills. They are:

A.3144, which requires health insurance companies and HMOs to notify a policyholder of cancellation or non-renewal with 60 days of the expiration date of the policy;

A.4150, which de-emphasizes the need for claimants to include a payers postal mailing address for adjudicating a claim filed electronically.