UnumProvident Long Term Disability Insurance Scandal Continues
UnumProvident, the nation's largest long term disability insurance company, has been ordered to pay an $8 million dollar fine and change the way it evaluates long term disability claims in California in a settlement announced today. On the heels of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's wide ranging Unum settlement last year and a recent stinging LA Times article highlighting the problems in the entire disability insurance policy industry, UnumProvident has suffered another embarrassing blow. Now, residents of California have the best protections in the US against unscrupulous disability insurance company practices. No more "pizza parties" for employees who deny the most disability claims. Employees will now have a fighting chance to get the disability benefits they paid for and desperately need.
Hopefully, the California reforms will spread to all 50 states. If not, Congress should step in to reform ERISA, the federal statute that regulates group long term disability claims. To Unum's credit, based upon the experiences of my clients, UnumProvident does seem to have cleaned up its act recently. This settlement insures that such reforms shall continue. Now all we need is to have companies like MetLife, Cigna, and Disability Management Services jump on the reform bandwagon. Don't hold your breath!
I just started recieving long term disability in Oct005 Now I get a letter from The insurance company asking me if they can come to my home and interview me for 3 hours and use a lap top computer to type everything I say, is this unusual? it sounds like a deposition to me, What should I do and is this legal
I just started recieving long term disability in Oct005 Now I get a letter from The insurance company asking me if they can come to my home and interview me for 3 hours and use a lap top computer to type everything I say, is this unusual? it sounds like a deposition to me, What should I do and is this legal
I was employed by Unisys when my LTD began. Since then the facility that I worked at has been sold several times and HR people that I was used to speaking with tells me that I have to direct all questions to Unisys. My question is: If Unisys decides to terminate my LTD benefit for their own monetary reasons, what recourse do I have? E.g.: Is there an agency and or case law that I can rely on; or must I attempt to consult my own attorney.
Received UNUM benefits from 1998 to 2001 when they decided to terminate benefits. They allows business losses as offsets in 1998 and 1999, but disallowed business losses in 2000 and 2001, which would have otherwise kept me under the 80% threshold to remain considered disabled, even though I was physically disabled. This arbitrary decision has led to them trying to get me to pay them a lump sum in excess of $61,000 yet my CPA tells me that based on UNUM numbers AND the business losses had they considered as they did in 98/99, that UNUM not only underpaid benefits, but wrongfully terminated benefits. I was wondering what I should do. They are threatening litigation although I believe they used inconsistent approaches for their benefit, leaving me out in the cold.
I worked at my local hospital for about 6 years before one of the providers in our office found that I had a mass in the rt frontal lobe of my brain. Trying to be super woman, after having major brain surgery I came back to work after only 3 weeks later. I was a medical receptionist I was only allowed to came back half days anyway that afternoon on my first day returning home home I suffered a massive seizure that changed my world forever. Upon falling I hit the back of my head and neck and have had chronic debelatating pain since. I suffer from miagranes from hell and neck and shoulder pain as well from depression. I quit work in Aug of of 2006 and applied for lt disability about two years to the day of when everything happenend. Humen resources never told me I even had that option to apply for them so I pushed through the pain because we were a two family income. Well in Aug of 2005 I quit for 2 month and had to move because of my husbands jobs the hospital had a sister hospital I could have transferred too up their but they said their were no jobs at that moment so I found another one.After getting the other job then they call me and said they found a job for me. Well make a long story short we moved back to our old town two months two the day and I was given my same job back same desk with same pay it was like I never left except when in Aug 06 i had another seizure and I went to apply for unum they told me everything was prexsisting. They found my depression.But mental healt only lasted for 24 months and then it needed to be something physcial that was not prexsisting but that depression was secoundary too. Nov of 08 I have been being pd under reservation of rights and here we are Jun of 09 and I was approved for social security on may 4 now they say I will owe them all of my retro pay from ss which will be over 30 something thousand $. I have attorney I am like how come I was not made aware of this? He's like you signed the paper. I am like things come so slow to me at times that even the judge prdered a payee on my money. I truley belived that I was being pd 60% of my wages and then when social security would kick then the adjustment s would be made. I wonder what they can do to me if I dont pay it back. Exccept not pay me any more which what social security would be paying between that and what I would get for my girls would only be a difference of like a couple hundred if that. I have never applied for anything like this before but is this not what long term disability is for? So you are borrowing the money really its not really yours. They bend you over cause they know you have no way at any other income. Great job UNUM YOU SHOULD BE PROUD TO ---- over the hard working people whohelped put you were today. Cheating, lying, stealing list goes on and om.