A Tennessee woman has filed a claim denial lawsuit against Unum Life Insurance Company of America and the Smith & Nephew Group Life and Accidental Death and Dismemberment Plan over alleged “wrongful refusal” of life insurance benefits following her husband’s death.

Plaintiff Cherisa L. also accuses the defendants of violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 in the Unum life insurance claim denial lawsuit.

According to the Unum claim denial lawsuit, Cherisa’s husband, Mark, was employed by Smith & Nephew at the time of his death on Nov. 5, 2013. Mark was covered by his company’s life insurance policy.

After her husband’s death, Cherisa’s Unum lawsuit states that she filed a timely application for life insurance benefits under her husband’s Unum life insurance plan. Unum initially granted Cherisa’s claim then reneged and revoked its approval and denied the claim. Cherisa appealed the decision but Unum stuck by its decision.

Thousands of people have filed Unum lawsuits, alleging that the insurance giant unfairly denies or wrongfully terminates legitimate insurance claims to boost company profits.

Like Cherisa, thousands of other plaintiffs have accused Unum for years of bad faith practices by denying claims and unlawfully discontinuing disability payments.

The company’s alleged nefarious practices have resulted in a multi-state investigation and a class action lawsuit to research all claims of Unum benefit denials. The company has been reprimanded for its refusal to consider medical opinions of doctors not employed by Unum, something a court found to be illegal.

Unum’s alleged denial tactics include practices such as changing policies after claims are filed (without the knowledge or consent of policy holders), obtaining opinions from unqualified “experts,” improperly investigating claims, using contract medical examiners to interpret medical records, using third-party medical examiners to deny claims when policyholders did not provide a medical exam, not providing policyholders sufficient time to obtain a medical exam, requiring repeated independent medical examinations, denying a claim without any medical examination and refusing to acknowledge certain disabilities, specifically mental illness, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

In 2002, CBS News aired an expose into Unum’s business practices, speaking with more than a dozen former employees, including senior executives, who confirmed that management pressured claim handlers to deny new claims and shut down existing ones to meet monthly targets and increase profits.

The company has also been known to tell claimants they fall under a pre-existing condition and pressure them to accept a lower settlement.

Unum was ordered to pay a urology surgeon with disabling ankle pain $1.5 million for unfairly denying his claim, and $36 million to an eye surgeon who could no longer perform surgery after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Unum had denied the doctor’s disability claim.

Formerly known as Paul Revere, Provident, and then Unum Provident, Unum is the world’s largest disability insurance company with approximately 10,000 employees and has a 40 percent market share.