May 2012 is Disability Insurance Awareness Month

It is once again Disability Insurance Awareness Month, and while the insurance companies may like to celebrate by encouraging people to purchase disability insurance, we’d like to take this opportunity to repeat some information from one of our previous blog posts regarding what your disability insurer can and can’t legally do in Arizona if you file a claim.

What your disability insurance company can do

  1. Audit your billing records and tax returns
  2. Review your medical files
  3. Use a private investigator to conduct photographic and video surveillance
  4. Look at your public Facebook profile and photos
  5. Follow your tweets on Twitter
  6. Order an Independent Medical Exam
  7. Have their doctor opine about your disability
  8. Ask for a Functional Capacity Evaluation
  9. Contact your treating physician
  10. Schedule in-person interviews with you
  11. Interview your friends, family, co-workers and employees
  12. Demand precise quantifications of how you spent your time in every professional activity pre- and post-disability
  13. Pay your claim under a reservation of rights

What the disability insurance company cannot do

  1. Impose requirements on you that are not contained in your insurance policy
  2. Attempt to influence the opinions of independent medical examiners
  3. Misrepresent policy provisions
  4. Conduct abusive interviews
  5. Unfairly delay a decision on your claim
  6. Fail to conduct a timely, adequate investigation of your disability claim
  7. Destroy key documents
  8. Lie about actions taken on a claim
  9. Place their financial interests ahead of your contractual rights
  10. Force you to litigate by offering an unreasonably low lump-sum buyout

When it comes to claims investigation, disability insurance companies sometimes skirt the limits of what they can legally do. If you believe your insurance carrier might be acting in bad faith, contact an attorney to protect your disability benefits.