A disabled Costco worker from South Carolina is claiming that his insurance company Unum denied disability payments that were due to him arbitrarily and unfairly.

Plaintiff Henry B. was a greeter at warehouse giant Costco, and was also disabled. He became no longer able to fulfill his job as a greeter at the retailer and was dismissed from that position. Costco could not find another job for him, and as a result, Henry began collecting disability benefits from Unum insurance.

Unum paid Henry disability benefits for three years. Without warning and in what Henry calls an arbitrary decision, Unum denied disability benefits to Henry. They refused to continue to pay him without cause or explanation.

As a Costco employee, Henry was a participant in an employee group welfare benefits plan managed by Unum that included long term disability benefits.

According to this Unum denied disability lawsuit, under the group plan long-term disability benefits will begin to pay out if an employee is disabled. Disabled, according to the Costco plan, means “due to sickness, injury or pregnancy [the employee] is under the regular care of a physician and … is limited from performing the material and substantial duties of [his] own job or a reasonable alternative offered by Costco.”

Additionally, an employee falls under the plan’s requirements if they are unable to earn 80% or more of their indexed monthly earnings.

Henry, according to his Unum denied disability lawsuit, has “degenerative disc disease, radiculopathy and chronic pain syndrome among other conditions in addition to associated chronic pain, fatigue, cognitive impairment, and other conditions, symptoms and impairments.”

He began as a tire installer and remained in this position for eight years, ending in 2010 because of a lumbar spine condition. He then took a job as a greeter for Costco, but he had to sit in a wheelchair because of his debilitating condition. He did this for two years, but Costco then told him they had nothing left for him to do.

Unum paid Henry his disability benefits for approximately three years. In those first nine months, Unum paid him for being disabled from his own occupation, and then for the remainder of the payment period, Unum paid him for being disabled from any occupation.

In April 2016, however, Henry received a letter from Unum stating that they believed him to be no longer disabled and that they would not pay his disability benefits any longer. They told him there were other jobs that he could do.

He quickly filed an appeal against his Unum denied disability notice. Unum denied the administrative appeal and again denied his benefits by a letter that he received in April 2017.

He believes that he has been wrongly denied his benefits and that he has rights to the insurance benefits he has paid into.

This Unum Denied Disability Benefits Lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-01901-MBS in the Court of Common Pleas, Fifth Judicial Circuit in the State of South Carolina, County of Richland.