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What is the UnumProvident Settlement about?
The insurance regulators of all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa participated in an examination of the claims handling practices of Unum Life Insurance Company of America, The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company (“Revere”), and Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company (“Provident”), the three disability insurers owned by UnumProvident Corp. The U.S. Department of Labor conducted a related investigation of UnumProvident’s practices involving employee benefit plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. As a result of the examination and the DOL investigation, the three UnumProvident companies mentioned above plus First Unum Life Insurance Company, their New York affiliate, entered into a Settlement Agreement requiring the companies to change their claims practices and to reassess certain long term disability claims going back as far as 1997. The Settlement Agreement was amended in October 2005 to provide claimants with some additional protections.
A long term disability claim can be reassessed if it was denied or closed since January 1, 1997 for reasons other than the following: death of the claimant; withdrawal of the claim; claimant did not satisfy the elimination period; maximum benefits were paid; or, the claim was resolved through litigation or settlement.
However, if you have a reasonable basis for asserting that the Company improperly denied or closed your claim for any of the reasons listed above, you may also have your claim reassessed.
In addition, if you have pending litigation against the Company challenging the denial or termination of your claim, and your lawsuit was filed after you received notice of the Claim Reassessment Process (“CRP”), or your lawsuit was filed before you received notice of the CRP but there has been a verdict or judgment on the merits before the completion of the reassessment of the claim, you may not have that claim reassessed as part of the CRP.
If you have been wrongfully denied your Long Term Disability you have the right to an attorney. To contact a lawyer fill out the form below.
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