Epic’s mass layoffs left a programmer with terminal brain cancer without life insurance, but Tim Sweeney says the company will “solve” the problem

Epic Games’ mass layoffs led a programmer with terminal brain cancer to lose his life insurance, leaving him and his family struggling to find new coverage. Following news of the situation breaking, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has said the company have reached out to the programmer – Mike Prinke – and that they “will solve the insurance”.

As reported by Kotaku, Prinke’s wife Jenni Griffin outlined what was happening to the family in a Facebook post after Prinke was let go alongside over 1000 other staff in Epic’s layoffs last week. Prinke joined Epic as a technical writer in July 2019, appearing in the company’s Inside Unreal YouTube tutorials in that role, and was a programmer writer at the time he was laid off.

“What makes this different for our family is that Mike is currently fighting terminal brain cancer,” Griffin wrote. “Because of the layoff, we didn’t just lose income – we lost his life insurance. And because his condition is now considered a pre-existing condition, he can’t get new coverage.”

“We should be spending every possible moment treasuring the time we have left as tumors are actively bleeding into Mike’s brain,” she added in an interview with Kotaku. “But instead, we have to rush to try and figure out life insurance as fast as possible. At any time, Mike could have his third ‘major event’ and become unresponsive. At that point, he will not have the ability to track all this stuff down.”

In his letter announcing the layoffs, Epic boss Tim Sweeney wrote that staff affected by the cuts would receive “a severance package that includes at least four months of base pay, with more based on tenure” and have their company-paid healthcare coverage extended. He’s since responded to Prinke’s situation on Twitter, writing that Epic are “in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them”.

“There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision,” Sweeney continued. “Sorry to everyone for not recognizing this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance.”

As of yesterday, Griffin has updated her Facebook post noting that the family “are in talks now with the appropriate people”. Here’s hoping that Prinke’ll be covered again soon and that his family won’t have to carry on facing uncertainty over how they’ll pay for both his funeral and their own future.