A South Carolina resident filed a disability insurance lawsuit against Unum Life Insurance Company alleging the company wrongfully denied long-term disability benefits under her employer’s long term disability plan.

Long term disability income protection insurance provides financial benefits to employees when they are unable to work due to a disability regardless of whether or not that illness or injury is work-related.

According to the Unum claim denial lawsuit, plaintiff Tonya S. was denied long-term disability benefits from her Unum long term disability policy.

Tonya, a former Electrolux employee, was diagnosed with a disability, which she didn’t disclose in her Unum claim denial lawsuit, which allegedly prevented her from working.

Even though her disability prevented Tonya from working, her claim for long term disability benefits was denied by Unum, according to the disability insurance lawsuit. She alleges that Unum based its decision to deny her long term disability benefits based on biased information and flawed expert opinion and not based upon substantial evidence provided by Tonya.

Tonya has appealed the denial and exhausted all administrative remedies, but Unum has refused to provide additional benefits or concrete reasons for the denial, according to the disability insurance lawsuit.

The Unum long term disability lawsuit further accuses the defendants of making its claim decision while operating under a conflict of interest that significantly influenced Unum’s denial of Tonya’s claim.

Unum Disability Denials Are Common Practice

Unum (formerly known as Unum Provident and First Unum) has written disability insurance policies for approximately 17 million Americans, making it the largest disability insurance provider in the United States. The insurer has reportedly denied countless insurance claims to thousands of policyholders in the past two decades. Some examples of Unum’s insurance claim denial tactics allegedly include:

• Improperly investigating the claim and obtaining opinions from unqualified people/supposed experts
• Demanding repeated requests for independent medical examinations or denying a claim without any medical examination or reasonable explanation
• Partially paying a claim for total disability and then denying the same claim at a subsequent date

Unum Insurance Long Term Disability Lawsuits

Unum and its subsidiaries, including Provident Life, The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company and Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company, have been subject to numerous claim denial lawsuits for allegedly refusing to pay valid disability claims.

Unum policyholders have filed bad faith disability insurance lawsuits against the insurance company for practicing bad faith insurance and denying their Unum long term disability benefits insurance.

Tonya is seeking entitled disability benefits pre-judgment and post-judgment interest as allowed under Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and attorney’s fees and other court costs.

The Unum Long Term Disability Benefits Insurance Lawsuit is Case No. 8:14-cv-04241-MGL, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Anderson Division.