Blogs should have personality and overflow with information of concern to people. A blog should also have human interest and humor. We hope this new blog of ours will more than meet these criteria.
Undertaking a new venture with these parameters is not done lightly. But, this firm has a long history of tackling tough cases, so here goes.
While our law firm’s site (http://www.uqur.com/) details our more than 50 years’ experience in Commercial, Land Use, Zoning, Disability Income Insurance and other legal areas, we wanted a special blog devoted to hints and events from our disability insurance claims experience for those who might get some help or solace from them and those who might want to participate in the blog.
Our insurance star is Michael E. (Mike) Quiat. He has been licensed to practice in New York and New Jersey and has been for more than 25 years.
About 20 years ago, while working for a prestigious New York “white collar’ law firm, Mike represented his first DI (Disability Income) insurance claimant. It was a challenge requiring him to research whole new areas of the law. This was also his first experience with finding his client’s way through the jungle of insurance policy language.
Despite the burden of taking on new law and new language, Mike found he liked helping DI claimants get their money. After all, people pay good money to insurers for their policies down through the years. Why, when it comes time to pay these people, do many insurers drag their feet or just outright refuse to pay?
Of course, there are times the insurer is right. If a policy doesn’t cover your situation or the policy was issued on faulty information then the insurance company most likely doesn’t have to pay.
But, many times the claimant has a valid claim but the insurer doesn’t see it that way. In such cases, after preliminary talks with the client, Mike gets into the trenches and, if necessary, goes to war with the insurer.
The more Mike does insurance work, the more he realizes that a claimant should have legal help from lawyers very familiar with policy language and the special way an insurance claim proceeds. This is because speed of decision, whether it involves a disability income (DI/LTD), long term care (LTC) or life claim, is usually vital to the client.
Since the basis of a DI/LTD claim is that earning power is seriously impaired, if not actually “zero”, it is easy to see why a disabled worker or professional needs the fastest possible resolution of a claim. The same holds true in long term care or life claims. Without the proceeds of the policy, what is the policyholder or the family to do? Add to the mental and physical stress of the condition which is the basis of your claim the stress of being unable to meet family needs out of present income, and you have a potpourri of worries that would tend to sink an ordinary person.
Mike knows that while not all insurers take this advantage to the limit, all of them are aware of it. Insurance companies are in the business of saving money and adding it to their bottom line and all insurers use that weakened financial and emotional condition against the claimant to some degree or another.
Mike points out that insurance companies have staffs of highly experienced attorneys who know how to put a claimant through a legal wringer so as to slow a matter to a snail’s pace or to get a claimant so disgusted that the claimant drops the claim. Mike has found that to fight this kind of response a policyholder needs experienced legal help.
Having said all this, we just want to let you know what this blog hopes to be about: A people’s bank of helpful and educational information on DI/LTD, LTC and life insurance claims, how they should be pursued in the best interest of the policyholder, and other news which would be of interest to those involved with such claims.
All of this tempered, we hope, with a touch of humor and an optimistic outlook for the future.
Wish us luck!
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