By Barbara Anderman  |  August 7, 2014

Category: Consumer News

UnumUnum Life Insurance Company was hit with a disability insurance lawsuit by a South Carolina woman who alleges that the insurance company denied her benefits after she became disabled.

South Carolina plaintiff April Rutledge was employed by Health Springs Dental Associates until April 2013.

Through her employers she was provided short and long-term disability plans through Unum. However, when she became disabled due to health issues she suffered, Unum reportedly denied her claim.

According to the Unum lawsuit, Rutledge appealed the denial, and “fully exhausted administrative remedies,” but to no avail. She was still denied her disability benefits.

Unum is the largest disability insurance company in the country. It’s been alleged by many that Unum unjustly denies or terminates thousands of disability benefit claims in order to boost their bottom line.

In the case of Rutledge’s Unum lawsuit, she claims that Unum’s “initial decision was reached by ignoring relevant evidence pertaining to Plaintiff’s claim and, instead, relying upon biased information and flawed expert opinions.”

Now Rutledge seeks the fulfillment of her short term and long term disability benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which is a federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established health and pension plans, to protect policy holders.

Rutledge is now suing Unum for the benefits that she is entitled to the under the terms of her plan.

If “the substance of the record might not support Plaintiff’s entitlement to benefits” then she requests that the court “exercise its inherent power to remand Plaintiff’s claim for a ‘full and fair’ review by the appropriate claim fiduciary Defendant [Unum].”

The Unum Insurance Claim Denial Lawsuit is April Rutledge v. Unum Life Insurance Company, Case No. 1:14-2873-TLW, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Rock Hill Division.

Disability Insurance and Unum

According to estimates from Disabilityinsurance.org, “one out of every four persons in the U.S. workforce will suffer a disabling injury before retirement.”

Workers are able to purchase disability insurance from a company like Unum in order to survive a situation when they get hurt or become sick and are unable to work for several months or longer.

Unum is the top disability insurer in both the United States and the United Kingdom, with annual revenues of over $10 billion and close to 15 million policyholders.

Over the past two decades, Unum and its subsidiaries have been the subject of many insurance claim denial lawsuits alleging the company systematically denied thousands of policy holders their disability insurance.

In general, Unum claim denial lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

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