In California, regulators ordered insurers to reinstate the policies of 26 patients who allegedly lied on their applications.
As Michelle Andrews notes in the linked article, insurers will often claim that a patient “lied” about something that was either an honest mistake or the result of the insurer using strange definitions. For instance:
…one woman I spoke with on this topic had answered “no” when asked if she’d been treated for cancer in the past 10 years. Later her policy was yanked because the insurer claimed that regular blood work she had to ensure her earlier cancer hadn’t returned constituted cancer treatment.
One might guess that this phenomenon occurs in other states as well. Andrews comments that patient advocates suspect it does.There is certainly no evidence indicating that it is confined to California.