A Pittsburgh registered nurse has filed a disability insurance lawsuit against Unum Life Insurance Company of America, accusing the insurance giant of “wrongfully, arbitrarily and capriciously” discontinuing her long-term disability benefits.

Plaintiff Yvonne Lamanna began full-time employment at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in April 2006, where part of her benefits package included long-term disability coverage by Unum, according to the Unum lawsuit.

In September of that year, Lamanna was unable to continue her nursing duties due to degenerative arthritis of bilateral knees, right shoulder, cervical and lumbar spine along with carpal tunnel syndrome and trochantric bursitis, she explained in her claim denial lawsuit.

In April 2007, she filed a claim with Unum to collect long-term disability benefits. The following month Unum advised her that they had approved the claim.

Lamanna received her monthly benefit of $2,248.27 until being abruptly terminated after receiving a payment on June 2, 2009.

On May 1, Unum notified Lamanna that it had reviewed her claim and decided that she may no longer meet the policy’s definition of disability. On July 31, 2009, Unum advised Lamanna that its review found that Lamanna was able to perform sedentary work and she would no longer be receiving disability payments. She appealed the decision but was notified that the company’s decision to terminate her long-term disability benefits was correct.

Lamanna was awarded Social Security Disability Benefits effective February 1, 2008.

Unum has been the subject of a multi-state investigation and claim denial class action lawsuits for its repeated benefit denials. It has been reprimanded for refusing to consider medical opinions of doctors not employed by Unum, something a court found to be illegal.

Unum and its subsidiaries, Provident Life, The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company and Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company, have all been accused of unlawfully refusing to pay valid disability claims.

In 2002, CBS News aired an expose into Unum’s business practices, speaking with more than a dozen former employees, including senior executives, who confirmed that management pressured claim handlers to deny new claims and shut down existing ones to meet monthly targets and increase profits.

Unum has been accused of doing things like changing policies after claims are filed (without the knowledge or consent of policy holders), obtaining opinions from unqualified “experts,” improperly investigating claims, using contract medical examiners to interpret medical records, using third-party medical examiners to deny claims when policyholders did not provide a medical exam, not providing policyholders sufficient time to obtain a medical exam, requiring repeated independent medical examinations, denying a claim without any medical examination and refusing to acknowledge certain disabilities, specifically mental illness, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

The company has also been known to tell claimants they fall under a pre-existing condition and pressure claimants to accept a lower settlement.

Unum was ordered to pay a urology surgeon with disabling ankle pain $1.5 million for unfairly denying his claim and $36 million to an eye surgeon who could no longer perform surgery after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Unum had denied the doctor’s disability claim.