PARA ESPAÑOL OPRIMA AQUÍ

Did Unum Long-Term Disability Insurance Deny Your Benefits?

The last thing you feel like doing when your health is poor and you can’t work is fighting with an insurance company.

But if you have Unum for your long-term disability (LTD) coverage and you find out they’re refusing your benefits, you have a chance to reverse the decision.

This can make the difference between a financial crisis—and having the financial means to focus on taking care of yourself.

Unum is one of the largest long-term disability insurance companies. In fact, Unum itself said it is the biggest in the United States for group and individual disability policies, according to data from an industry research group called LIMRA.

Unum is based in Tennessee and is a major provider of long-term disability insurance in the Detroit Metro and throughout Michigan. On its website, Unum said its policies cover up to 60% of your lost income when health problems stop you from working.

When it tries keep you from getting benefits, however, Unum uses tactics common in the insurance industry.

At Levine Benjamin Law Firm, we’ve seen it all before.

We have experience with cases involving Unum.

And we know how to fight back.

3 Common Tactics Used By Unum

Look out for these tactics Unum uses to resist paying your long-term disability benefits:

1. Conducting Surveillance on You
Terrible as it sounds, insurance companies will sometimes send people to watch you in public, looking for evidence that your condition isn’t debilitating.

They’ll sit in the grocery store parking lot, trying to get pictures of you lifting heavy grocery bags. They’ll try to catch you going to the gym—even if that’s what the doctor recommended.

They’ll monitor your social media, looking for signs that you’re doing something that requires stamina, like taking a trip.

2. Nitpicking What Your Doctor Says
Reports from your doctor are vital to your long-term disability claim.

Unum will scrutinize your doctor’s opinion that you need to stay off work.

They’ll pore over the results of your lab tests, physical exams, x-rays, MRIs or any other medical findings, looking for reasons to deny your claim.

3. Telling You to Write a Letter
Sometimes, the insurance company will tell you to “just write us a letter” to dispute their denial of your benefits.

It may seem like they’re trying to be helpful, but they’re not.

They’re lulling you into thinking you took the necessary action—when actually you need to be submitting new statements and evidence challenging the insurance company experts who said you don’t need benefits.

At Levine Benjamin, you don’t pay anything to talk to us about your case. And you don’t pay an attorney’s fee until you win.

If My Benefits Were Denied or Stopped, Can I Appeal?

Insurance companies can refuse to pay your long-term disability benefits in two major ways:

1. Denying your claim from the beginning.

2. Cutting off your benefits after a period of time.
In either case, you can appeal the decision and still receive benefits.

To fight an initial denial, you must provide strong medical evidence, including all the latest reports from appointments with your doctor.

Terminations of your existing benefits often happen because the insurance company raises the standard of what qualifies as a disability after a period of time.

At first they give you benefits based on the fact that your health keeps you from doing the same job you had before—what the insurer calls your “own job.”

Then, often after two years, the insurance company says you can only continue qualifying for benefits if you can’t do “any job” that exists.

A Levine Benjamin lawyer gathers the medical and vocational assessments you need to fight these denials.

Standing Up for You

If Unum—or any long-term disability carrier—is giving you trouble, you need to safeguard your rights under your insurance policy.

After all, you, or your employer, paid for this coverage.

It’s supposed to be there when you need it.

At Levine Benjamin, we stand up to the insurance company to get you the maximum benefits you’re owed.

What would you like to do?

Skip to content