Paul Revere Disability Insurance Claims
Paul Revere is now a part of the Unum Group of insurance companies after a series of corporate mergers.
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s Paul Revere aggressively sold policies to highly-paid professionals. These policies guaranteed payment of a monthly benefit if the policyholder became unable to perform at his or her own profession. Some policies even offered lifetime benefits. It is a matter of public record that Paul Revere and other current Unum affiliates under-priced these policies and ended up losing money on them.
Although these policies offer excellent benefits, Unum has been found to have adopted a policy of routinely searching for rationalizations to deny valid claims, and of being particularly aggressive with high dollar claims. One tactic that Unum adopted in the early 2000’s was to conduct secret and undocumented “roundtable” discussions where various employees met to try to find or manufacture a reason to deny a high value claim.
The Multistate Regulatory Agreement
Unum and all its affiliates, including its Paul Revere and Provident divisions, was investigated and alleged to have wrongly denied thousands of claims. The company entered into a Multistate Regulatory Settlement Agreement with 48 state Attorneys General that required them to reassess hundreds of thousands of long-term disability claims denied between 1997 and 2004. As a result of the agreement, Unum’s affiliate insurers paid out approximately $676 million on previously denied claims. Unum also agreed to certain conditions in its investigation and payment of future claims.
Wrongful Paul Revere Denials Persist at Unum
Regardless of the changes brought about by the agreement, we still routinely get calls from clients whose claims Unum has denied. We find similar patterns in Unum and Paul Revere’s handling of certain high dollar claims and on group insurance claims governed by ERISA, the federal Employee Retirement Benefit Security Act. For many reasons, ERISA favors the insurance companies, not the least of which is ERISA’s “preemption” of claims for bad faith and other categories of damages. Because of the lack of teeth in ERISA’s remedies, there is little disincentive to dissuade insurers from denying claims. The worst that can happen under ERISA is that a court will ultimately require them to pay the policy benefits, without any penalty for bad faith. In the meantime, during the litigation, they have the use of the funds they should have paid you. Any delay is money in their pockets.
If you have a Paul Revere or other Unum policy, the attorneys of the Atlanta, Georgia law firm of Robinson, & Warncke, LLC can help. We focus our law practice on recovering wrongfully denied disability insurance benefits.
Legal Help with a Paul Revere or Other Unum Insurance Claim
Call us as soon as you realize that you are no longer able to perform the duties of your occupation effectively and we will guide you through the application process, helping you to build a thoroughly-documented file in support of your claim. We can also help you avoid the pitfalls of a vague and sometimes misleading application form. If you’ve been denied already, we will represent you in your administrative appeal, and when necessary, will file a lawsuit in federal court to obtain a judicial review of the denial. To learn more about appeals, read our article Should I Handle My Own Appeal?
The Robinson, & Warncke Record of Success
At Robinson, & Warncke, your case will receive the personal attention of a senior attorney. We limit the number of cases we accept in order to be able to provide this kind of highly focused attention to each of our clients. As a result, we have an exceptionally high success rate and have obtained more than $25 million in previously denied claims for the clients we have represented over the past decade.
Call us today for a free telephone evaluation of your case.