Another Blast for UNUM

Some insurance companies have all the luck! Another Court has teed off on the business practices and tactics of a UNUM insurance company (see UNUM item below) in a disability income insurance case by adopting language saying the company has a "...disturbing pattern of erroneous and arbitrary benefits denials, bad faith contract misinterpretations and other unscrupulous tactics."

In McCauley v First Unum Life Insurance Company, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 26094 (2nd Cir. 2008), the Appellate Court found that the evidence clearly indicated that the client was entitled to disability benefits from the time he made his claim in 1995, a period of about a dozen years.

To maintain a lawsuit for such a long period of time when one is seriously ill and can't work to bring in money to live on requires a special set of circumstances that most claimants don't have. And, don't think the insurance companies, such as Unum, aren't aware of this situation. They are in the business of savings themselves money on claims and the natural circumstance of the claimant without funds to live on puts intense pressure on claimants to settle for less than they would be entitled to or even to give up claims altogether if they can't get a disability insurance attorney to take the case on contingency.

Time is usually of the essence for the claimant in a disability income insurance case. An attorney who knows disability income law and insurance company tactics would seem also essential.