Unum is facing another bad faith insurance claim lawsuit.

Plaintiff Russell S. of Pennsylvania, who worked as a laboratory technician, alleges that Unum is acting in bad faith by rejecting his claim.

In November 2013, Russell suffered a serious head and neck injury, which resulted in a right henidiaphragm defect, and a hernia. Allegedly, the damage to his neck, shoulder, and spine left him unable to walk or even crawl.

However, Unum has denied his disability insurance claims, saying that Russell is not truly disabled and can work, despite the fact that his doctors have stated that he is permanently and severely disabled. Russel has allegedly exhausted Unum’s internal appeals process and has now resorted to a Unum lawsuit to try and get his benefits.

Unum is the world’s largest disability insurance provider in both the United States and the world. Unum controls 40 percent of the disability insurance policies in the United States.

Disability insurance works by having policyholders pay into their disability insurance policy, then have the policy help pay part of their income if they are disabled. However, Unum lawsuits like this one allege that Unum sometimes acts in bad faith on disability insurance claims, denying rightful disability insurance claims to protect their bottom line.

Bad faith is a legal term meaning that one party in a contract is trying to avoid their obligations. In the case of Unum lawsuits, it is often alleged that the disability insurance company tries to avoid paying out on legitimate disability insurance claims by denying them through stretching technicalities, or other tactics.

Unum has a long history of being accused of wrongly denying benefits to policyholders. The television newsmagazine “60 Minutes” aired an exposé on alleged business practices by Unum, including allegedly pressuring in-house physicians to override patients’ doctors’ determinations of disability and dismissing disability insurance claims on flimsy evidence.

Allegedly, Unum agents had strict “denial quotas” which could result in major shakeups for entire departments if missed. Additionally, the employee who denied the most disability insurance claims were issued the now-infamous “Hungry Vulture Award” for saving the company money.

Even though the “60 Minutes” segment aired more than a decade ago, new Unum lawsuits frequently make similar allegations of bad faith disability insurance denial.