Using a variety of surveillance and investigation techniques, disability insurance companies often try to gather information about claimants’ daily activities. Then, they use the information to say the claimants are not disabled – and not eligible for disability...
disability claims
State law remedies for denied individual insurance policy claims
Different laws apply to each of two types of disability insurance policies. The first kind of policy is governed by the federal law ERISA, short for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which applies to almost all policies offered through employment....
Court in ERISA appeal finds classic LTD disability insurer cherry-picking
Court in ERISA appeal finds classic LTD disability insurer cherry-picking Disability insurers have an arsenal of tactics to deny or terminate disability benefit claims. One common tactic is “cherry-picking” in which the insurer or its claims administrator picks...
Pre-existing condition and disability need substantial link to deny claim
Most disability insurance policies contain clauses that provide for the denial of disability claims for the first policy year if the disabling impairment was a pre-existing condition during a period of time immediately before the policy took effect – called the...
COVID-19 symptoms may form solid bases for disability insurance claims
While the medical community has communicated that many people who get COVID-19 either have no symptoms or a mild case, they have also advised that many experience severe symptoms, even if they do not require hospitalization. Additionally, an increasing number of...
COVID-19 Total Disability and First Responders & Healthcare Workers
For most of the past year, hospital based nurses, doctors, and medical staff as well as first responders have been repeatedly exposed to the traumatizing effects of COVID-19. Watching patients suffer from an illness about which we have little understanding and having...
Long-term disability claimant’s debilitating pain had subjective and objective support
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently held in favor of a long-term disability (LTD) claimant whose insurance company denied his claim based largely on severe, chronic back pain. Disability insurance companies often improperly discount credible...
Challenges of a disability insurance claim based on anxiety
We are currently having a collective experience that provokes some degree of natural anxiety in almost everyone. However, when the level of anxiety becomes overwhelming, it can prevent a person from being able to work in their occupation. Individuals with a private,...
Unum wrongly denied Long Term Disability as pre-existing condition
Disability insurance policies often ban coverage for disability that stems from pre-existing conditions. In other words, if someone had a medical problem within a specified time frame prior to their effective date of coverage and they became disabled within the first...
Establishing a disability insurance claim based on PTSD
The challenges of COVID-19 are not limited to contracting the virus and becoming ill. Many people are experiencing extreme stress and even trauma as a result of the pandemic – including first responders, medical personnel, those at greater risk due to advanced age or...