If your long-term disability claim has been denied, you should not take “no” as the insurance company’s final answer. In most circumstances, you have the right to submit an appeal challenging the benefit denial; and if the appeal is unsuccessful, a wrongfully denied claim may be litigated in court. What most people don’t realize, though, […]
The rationale behind the purchase of disability insurance is to provide an economic safeguard against unforeseen sickness or accidental injury. When misfortune occurs, economic hardship results. And if benefits are denied without justification, the premiums invested in insurance coverage appear worthless. All is not lost, though, because there are ways to fight back. Step 1: […]
DeBofsky Law won a victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in a case entitled Lacko v. United of Omaha Life Ins. Co., 2019 WL 2439786 (7th Cir. June 12, 2019). The plaintiff, Shirley Lacko, stopped working as a senior auditing manager for an accounting firm when the effects of multiple chronic impairments […]
Claim regulations in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act impose deadlines on claimants and plan administrators to submit claims and render claim decisions. Strict deadlines also apply to claim appeals. Claimants are allowed up to 180 days to submit appeals from denials of disability benefit claims, and if a claimant submits an appeal even a […]
Does a claimant seeking disability need to prove the cause of disability to qualify for benefits? According to a recent federal decision from Georgia, the answer is no. Arthur Lesser IV, the plaintiff in Lesser v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., 2019 WL 2416926 (N.D. Ga. June 4, 2019), worked as a software engineer for […]
The outcome of many disability insurance cases depends on the court’s assessment of the claimant’s credibility since symptom complaints are difficult to objectively verify. A ruling from a federal court in New York offers an excellent example. The case of Khan v. Provident Life and Accident Insurance Co., 2019 WL 1970516 (W.D. N.Y., May 3, 2019), involved Dr. Farooq Khan, a neurologist, who complained of joint pain and fatigue that worsened over several years, although an exact diagnosis was elusive.