Professional athletes are in a unique situation where there physical health may be put on the line daily just by the nature of their occupation. An injury could cost an athlete his or her career if the injury is severe enough to limit participation.

For this reason, many athletes choose to purchase disability insurance, also referred to as injury insurance, that includes coverage for a way to protect their income in the event of an unforeseen injury affecting their performance.

Group Disability vs Individual Disability Options

Many employees across the United States have group disability insurance coverage as part of their benefits package with their employers. Typically, premiums for group disability insurance cost less, and they may be covered in full as part of an employment contract.

There is typically no medical exam required. On the other hand, sometimes the benefit level may also be less since there is a lower premium. Some organizations outside an employer also offer disability or injury insurance at a group rate, such as a freelancer’s union.

With individual disability insurance, there are more types of plans offered, including the ability to price shop and customize the disability benefits package to suit each person’s needs. The disability insurance cost for private coverage may be comparable on some plans, or it may cost a lot more because you are not getting the benefit of a group buy-in to the plan. Also, sometimes a medical exam is required and certain conditions may be excluded, or it may be impossible to qualify.

For athletes, however, the choices may be very slim. Some sports organizations may not carry injury insurance for their athletes, or if they do, it may have a number of exclusions or carry a small benefit relative to a player’s income.

Professional sports players often find it necessary to seek private disability injury insurance, even if they have some coverage through the sports organization, but because the annual income of professional athletes is so high, the options of companies who will cover professional athletes are less than for those of most other working adults.

Insurance companies may offer a variety of programs to suit the needs of an athlete, including temporary or short term disability and permanent disability to those who have suffered a career-ending injury.

Filing a Disability Claim After Securing Insurance

While the hope is to have disability insurance “just in case,” sometimes athletes are faced with an injury that can be temporary or even permanent in nature. Unfortunately, disability insurance claim denials may be the result of bad faith insurance.

Unum Life Insurance of America (and by extension, its subsidiaries) has a reputation of insuring many individuals, and also has a reputation of issuing insurance in bad faith, according to several accusations against the company. Unum has had past issues with disability insurance lawsuits filed against the company for improper, routine denial of claims following some allegedly improper dealings in the 1980s known as cash flow underwriting.

Unum lawsuits have claimed that despite meeting all proper required deadlines, procedures and being otherwise eligible, claimants were denied their disability insurance benefits. This led to the plaintiffs having to go through internal appeals processes with the company and eventually after exhausting those, they chose to file a lawsuit against the company for not holding up its end of the bargain.

Filing a Disability Insurance Lawsuit

If you are a professional sports athlete and believe you have been wrongly denied benefits after filing a claim with Unum insurance or another insurance company, you may be eligible to pursue legal action against the company. An experienced Unum attorney can review your case for free and can assist you in understanding the legal options available to you.