How to Tell if an IME Doctor is Really Independent
At some point during many disability insurance claims, the claimant is compelled to undergo a so-called Independent Medical Examination, or “IME”. The purpose of the IME is supposedly to have an uninterested, unbiased doctor examine you to verify whether your condition truly makes you totally disabled under your disability insurance policy’s terms. However, IMEs are often used as yet another tool for the insurance company to attempt to deny or terminate your claim for disability benefits.
Though IMEs are labeled “independent”, the doctors performing them are almost always selected and paid by the insurance company. Further, many of the IME providers are used over and over again by the same companies. IME doctors that depend on the insurance industry for their livelihood have a strong incentive to give the insurance companies results they desire–medical opinions that support the denial or termination of your disability claim.
Continue reading “How to Tell if an IME Doctor is Really Independent”
The Injured Physician: Is Your Work Ethic Hurting You and Your Patients?
Disability insurance attorneys Edward O. Comitz and Patrick T. Stanley recently had their article “The Injured Physician: Is Your Work Ethic Hurting You and Your Patients?” published in the Winter 2013 edition of AzMedicine, the quarterly publication of the Arizona Medical Association.
In the article, Mr. Comitz and Mr. Stanley review some of the unintended consequences, both professional and personal, of a physician continuing to work through adversity, and the potential impact on his or her disability insurance coverage. For example, a physician who has modified his practice or work schedule in an effort to accommodate a disability may effectively change his occupational definition as it is defined in his “own occupation” disability insurance policy, making it difficult, if not impossible, to collect benefits when they are most needed.
The article also analyzes some of the pitfalls of “residual disability” or “partial disability” riders, such as the manner in which the insurer will determine the amount of benefits paid and differences in how long the insurance company is required to pay benefits.
The Arizona Medical Association periodically updates its website with recent editions of AzMedicine, or you may contact our office to obtain a copy of the full article and/or to speak with a disability insurance attorney.
Disability Insurer MassMutual Opens West Coast Center in Phoenix, Arizona
Disability insurer Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company aka MassMutual Financial Group has for the first time in its 162-year history opened a West Coast business center. The new 60,000 sq. ft. center is located on Black Canyon Highway near the I-17 and Peoria Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona and will employ as many as 400 people. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton were among those on hand for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the facility on October 16, 2013.
MassMutual CEO Roger Crandall told the Arizona Republic that the new Phoenix center will primarily serve customers and policyholders in the Western U.S., allowing for faster expansion and also mitigating operational risks to the company through diversification of the location of its resources and staff. During Superstorm Sandy, we blogged about the temporary shutdown of many of the disability insurance companies located on the East Coast, including MassMutual, Unum Group/UnumProvident, The Hartford, New York Life, and Berkshire Life/Guardian Life. With locations now in Arizona as well as Massachusetts, the company may be able to avoid a situation where its call center and other operations, such as issuance of disability benefit checks, are suspended due to a natural disaster.
MassMutual employs approximately 6,700 persons nationwide, including nearly 3,500 at its Massachusetts headquarters, which is currently in the midst of a major renovation. Roughly 25 employees have been transferred from MassMutual’s headquarters to the Phoenix facility and an additional 70+ employees, who were a part of The Hartford’s Retirement Plans business prior to its $400 million acquisition by MassMutual in September 2012, will become a part of MassMutual’s Phoenix staff. To round out its staff, MassMutual has announced plans to hire an additional 200-250 employees in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
According to the Arizona Republic, MassMutual has approximately 25,000 clients in Arizona and parts of New Mexico holding roughly $4 billion dollars in insurance coverage. While we are hopeful that MassMutual’s Phoenix facility will bring improvements to MassMutual’s disability insurance claims service, we would also advise disability claimants that having an additional 400 MassMutual local employees could also mean increased and potentially intrusive surveillance.
Disability Insurance Q&A: How Should Doctors Approach Their Treating Physicians About a Disability Claim?
Question: How should doctors approach their treating physicians about a disability claim?
Answer: Your treating physician’s support can often be critical to getting your claim approved. A hurried, uninterested physician may not have time to devote to your claim. In addition, fully discussing your condition with a professional, compassionate treating physician will help ensure supportive medical records. When to discuss your potential claim with a physician is an important timing issue. Also, when the time comes to speak to the treating physician about the claim, a disabled dentist or doctor should ensure that the treating physician understands the definition of “disability” under the insurance policy, so that he or she can accurately opine as to the inability of the doctor or dentist to work.
Some of our previous blog posts on this important issue are available here and here.
Disability Insurance Q&A: Why Do So Many Doctors’ Claims Get Denied, and How Can a Law Firm Help?
Question: Why do many doctors’ disability claims get denied, and how can a law firm help?
Answer: Doctors’ and dentists’ disability claims can be expensive for insurance companies to accept. The troubled economy and the rising number of disability claims filed by healthcare professionals have led to financial hardship. This strain on resources creates an incentive for insurance companies to deny medical professionals’ claims. Thus, many insurers closely scrutinize the terms of doctors’ and dentists’ policies in order to find ways to deny disability insurance benefits, as the long-term financial benefit to the insurance company is significant.
Our firm has years of experience in cases in which disability benefits have been rescinded based on alleged misrepresentation or non-disclosure in the original policy application. We also have a strong history of prosecuting cases in which benefits have been denied based on the insurance company’s insistence that a dentist’s or doctor’s “subjective claim” doesn’t provide objective evidence of disability.
Further information on our law firm’s services and what you can expect when filing a disability claim is available on our website at this link.
Disability Insurance Q&A: What Does Your Firm Do To Help Doctors File a Successful Claim for Disability Insurance Benefits?
Question: What does your law firm do to help doctors file a successful claim for disability insurance benefits?
Answer: From the beginning of the process, we help doctors, dentists and other professionals by analyzing complex claims applications and disability insurance policies and identifying potential coverage issues. We have particular skill in documenting claims, completing claim forms, and communicating with treating physicians. Once the claims process begins, we fiercely protect our clients against unreasonable delays and abuse by the disability insurer. We also provide knowledgeable advice and practical guidelines on how to handle an independent medical examination or other testing that may be required by the disability insurance carrier.
Further information about what we do and what to expect is available on our website at this link.
CIGNA fined in Multi-State Regulatory Settlement Agreement Re Group Long-Term Disability Claims Handling; Some CIGNA Claims to be Re-Evaluated
Following a Targeted Market Conduct Examination of CIGNA’s disability insurance claims handling practices, CIGNA companies — Life Insurance Company of North America, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, and Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company (fka Alta Health and Life Insurance Company) — entered into a Regulatory Settlement Agreement in May 2013 with the California Department of Insurance, the Connecticut Department of Insurance, the Maine Bureau of Insurance, the Massachusetts Division of Insurance, and the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Insurance regulators of other states may adopt the terms by becoming a Participating State. As of this time, Arizona is not amongst the Participating States.
The targeted market conduct examinations were initiated by the Maine Superintendent of Insurance and the Massachusetts Commissioner of Insurance in 2009 to investigate whether CIGNA’s claim handling practices conformed with the standards upheld by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The regulatory concerns raised by the initial examinations prompted Connecticut and Pennsylvania’s insurance commissioners to open similar examinations and for the California Department of Insurance to reopen its 2006 examination.
As a result of the examination, the CIGNA companies were ordered to pay fines in the amounts of $500,000.00 to the California Commissioner of Insurance, $175,000.00 to the Maine Superintendent of Insurance, and $250,000.00 to the Massachusetts Commissioner of Insurance, and to take certain corrective actions in the handling of group disability insurance claims, to include:
- Giving significant weight in a claimant’s favor if the SSA has awarded SSDI disability income;
- Improving procedures for gathering medical information, attempting to resolve discrepancies in medical statements or conclusions, documenting and outlining the medical conclusions upon which a determination of disability is made, and evaluating functional capacity with the presence of co-existing or co-morbid conditions;
- Following written guidelines for using external medical resources if medical opinion/information is unclear or contradictory or if the claims adjuster disagrees with the opinions of the treating physician(s); Continue reading “CIGNA fined in Multi-State Regulatory Settlement Agreement Re Group Long-Term Disability Claims Handling; Some CIGNA Claims to be Re-Evaluated”
Does Your Unum Claims Handler Have a Personal Financial Incentive to Deny or Terminate Your Disability Claim?
The transcript of Unum Group’s May 23, 2013 Annual Shareholder Meeting provides some disturbing insight into what may motivate claims personnel at Unum to deny or terminate a legitimate disability claim.
Unum’s Chief Executive Officer, President and Director, Thomas R. Watjen reported to the shareholders that they had “overwhelmingly approved” an employee cash incentive system based on performance:
The fourth item of business is the approval of our annual incentive plan, which provides employees the opportunity to earn cash incentive awards based primarily on the company’s performance each year. Our company performs well, employees get treated well from a financial standpoint. Our company doesn’t perform well, employees don’t get treated as well. . . . So our shareholders see, as we as directors and managers see, how to run the company successfully by creating an incentive system based on performance. So that has been overwhelmingly approved.
Later in the meeting, Unum’s Chief Financial Officer, Richard P. McKenney, spoke about the performance of Unum’s “closed block of business,” which includes its individual disability policies issued prior to the mid-1990s–the type of policies that Unum no longer sells.
We do have our Closed Block business. These are policies which are written some time ago. We serve those customers equally as well. But the returns in these businesses are lower.
Taken together, the two statements paint a picture of claims personnel handling the closed block of business under pressure to improve the returns, or else they “won’t get treated as well” or receive as sweet an incentive bonus.
We often hear from claimants who are incredulous that their claims have been denied or terminated despite a mountain of evidence of their disability. This may be one explanation, and having an attorney to advocate for you as a claimant can be essential when you have a financially-motivated adjuster reviewing your claim.
The full transcript of the Unum Annual Shareholder Meeting is available at Seeking Alpha.
Financial Stability of Disability Insurance Companies
Over the past few months, A.M. Best, Fitch Ratings, Standard & Poor’s (S&P’s) and Moody’s Investors Services have updated their ratings of the stability of several insurers that sell disability insurance.
In March 2013, A.M. Best affirmed the financial strength rating (A) (Excellent) of Union Central Life Insurance Co. Concurrently, they affirmed the debt rating (a-) of Union Central. Also in March 2013, Fitch affirmed the rating outlook of Stable for Hartford Financial Services Group and its insurance subsidiaries.
In June 2013, A.M. Best affirmed the A++ (Superior) rating of Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Insurance, in part because of Berkshire’s reputation for “aggressive claims management, effective loss control services and history of conservative loss reserving standards.” Berkshire may be better known to some disability insureds as Guardian Life, and insureds should consider seeking the advice of an experienced disability insurance attorney before filing a claim with a company with a reputation for aggressive claims handling.
The financial outlook in June 2013 also improved for some other disability insurers, including New York Life Insurance Co., Massachusetts Mutual (MassMutual), and Northwestern Mutual. Standard & Poor’s upgraded all of those companies from Negative to Stable, and the Stable rating for New York Life was affirmed by Moody’s in July.
Penn Mutual saw its rating from Moody’s drop from Stable to Negative in June 2013 due to its weaker business profile as a result of increasing product risk and modest earnings and profitability.
Pima County Medical Society Publishes Ed Comitz and Karla Thompson’s Article Re Surveillance in Disability Insurance Claims
The January 2013 edition of Sombrero, the publication of the Pima County Medical Society, features an article by disability insurance attorneys Edward O. Comitz and Karla Baker Thompson. The article, “Surveillance Misuse in Claims Investigations,” reviews some of the ways in which evolving technology has led to overly intrusive surveillance of claimants by insurance companies.
Among the surveillance techniques being utilized are stakeout operations, tailing (sometimes using a “decoy” investigator), pretexting (obtaining your personal information under false pretenses), and GPS and cell phone tracking. For example, some private investigators use a stingray, which is a cell phone tracking device that operates as a miniature cellular tower from inside of the PI’s vehicle. The device enables an investigator to connect to a claimant’s cell phone, even when it’s not in use, and, after taking measurements of the phone’s signal strength, triangulate its location. Since most people tend to carry their cell phones at all times, the device then allows the investigator to track the insured’s movements remotely.
The law surrounding some of these intrusive surveillance techniques, which have been made possible by modern technology, is not yet settled, and it is important that anyone on claim with their disability insurance carrier remain vigilant to the possibility of surveillance at all times, regardless of whether a human being is conducting the surveillance. Long gone are the days when surveillance was only conducted by someone with a camera sitting in a car outside an insured’s home.
Berkshire Criticized by Maryland Insurance Commissioner for “Artful Neglect”
Disability insurers have a duty to fully investigate claims for benefits, as the insurance companies are well aware. Unfortunately, some claims departments may focus their efforts on looking like they are investigating and considering information rather than actually doing so.
Berkshire, a disability insurance company that sells own-occupation policies to dentists and doctors, has garnered criticism from at least one state’s insurance commissioner for this very practice.
In Berkshire Life Insurance Company v. Maryland Insurance Administration, 142 Md. App. 628, 791 A.2d 942 (App. 2002), Berkshire attempted to claim that its insured was only partially disabled, and therefore it was only obligated to pay a fraction of the total benefits that were payable under the policy. In finding that Berkshire’s conduct was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of Maryland’s insurance statutes and ordering it to pay restitution to the policyholder, the Maryland Insurance Commissioner also found:
Overall, Berkshire’s actions here represent what may be termed as “artful neglect.” Berkshire gives the appearance of investigating a claim in order to render a good faith claims determination. As part of this appearance, Berkshire timely requests financial information from its insured and then timely requests more information from its insured. In direct contrast to this “appearance,” however, Berkshire does not analyze the information at all, much less use an analysis in a cogent and rational way to support a proper claims determination.
In a more recent Arizona case, Nunley v. Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America, 2009 WL 529901 (D. Ariz. 2009), Berkshire tried to have the United States District Court rule that it could not be subject to punitive damages in a case involving a disabled dentist’s total disability claim. The Court, however, denied Berkshire’s motion, finding that Berkshire might have to pay punitive damages because it did not investigate the dentist’s claim adequately or in a timely fashion.
This “artful neglect” is unlawful, and may subject a disability insurance carrier to bad faith liability. A disability insurance claimant who thinks her insurer is not adequately investigating the claim should contact an attorney to help protect her rights.
Insurance Bad Faith: Private Investigators and Their Surveillance Practices
Insurance companies often will hire a private investigator to aid in terminating disability insurance claims. Ostensibly, the purpose of a private investigator is to expose dishonest individuals of fraudulent disability insurance claims. A private investigator may even advertise as a “Disability Insurance Fraud Specialist.” All too often, however, insurance companies and their investigators are not seeking to expose fraud, but to manufacture it. They produce “evidence” only to aid in denying disability insurance claims—even wholly legitimate ones. They do so because there is a strong financial incentive to deny disability insurance claims.
Our firm has dealt with these insurance companies and their private investigators time and again. We know how they operate and how to prepare our clients. We have developed a short list of basic information about private investigators so you can know what to expect:
- When are they watching? In a previous post, we noted the five most popular times for disability surveillance: (1) holidays, (2) birthdays, (3) weekends, (4) activities claimant listed in insurance company’s activity log; and (5) near the end of fiscal quarters.
- Who are they? Typically, private investigators are just as the name indicates – private people from private companies. Disability insurance companies contract with these private companies to conduct surveillance on disability claimants.
- What are their surveillance methods? Particular tactics will vary depending upon the private investigator, the disability insurance company and the disability claimant. However, many methods are common across the board. Basically, the private investigator will inconspicuously follow a disabled claimant with a video-capturing device as the disabled claimant undergoes day-to-day activities. If the private investigator has difficulty locating the disabled claimant, the investigator may use different tactics, such as pretexting, stake-outs or tracking devices, to locate and track the claimant. Our last blog post describes these other tactics in detail.
Private Investigator Surveillance Methods and Terms
Private investigators use a variety of tactics to produce evidence that may be used to deny your disability insurance claim. Below is a list of different private investigator surveillance methods and terms.
Disability Surveillance – refers to the monitoring, recording and documenting of activities or behavior of another. In the disability context, this surveillance is called sub rosa surveillance. Sub rosa, a Latin phrase which translated means “under the rose,” denotes the secretive and clandestine nature of private investigator actions.
Disability Stake outs – according to Shannon Detective Service, Inc.—a private investigation company whose client list includes Arizona Counties Insurance Pool, CNA Commercial Insurance, Danielson Insurance, Farmers Insurance, Federated Mutual Insurance Company, Hartford Insurance, Insurance Company of the West, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Nationwide Insurance, Progressive Insurance, Seabright Insurance Company, Sedgwick Claims Service, Travelers Insurance and Westfield Insurance—this is a stationary surveillance method by which a private investigator documents and records a claimant’s activities. The hallmark feature of a stake out is that the private investigator does not move or follow the disabled claimant. In a typical stake out operation the private investigator may station in front of your home or office and record you as you come and go. The goal of the stake out is to produce evidence that will enable the insurance company to deny your disability insurance claim. An ABC News story shows how an insurance company successfully denied a doctor’s disability claim with evidence produced during a stake out.
Disability Pretexting – the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) defines pretexting as “the practice of getting your personal information under false pretenses.” Private investigators are engaging in illegal conduct when they use pretexting to obtain your personal information from a financial institution. See 15 U.S.C. § 6801, et seq.
Here’s an example of how this works: someone pretends to be you and calls your bank. The person claims to have forgotten your checkbook, account number, social security number or other sensitive information. He then tries to get this information from the bank. Such conduct constitutes pretexting and violates federal law. Id.
Although private investigators claim to use only “appropriate” pretexting methods, methods which are not illegal per se, these are the same techniques which are used to facilitate identity theft and consumer fraud. Check out the FTC website for more information about pretexting and how you can protect yourself.
Disability Tracking Devices and GPS – this area of the law is still evolving. In a recent Supreme Court case, United States v. Jones, the Court held that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment; therefore, law enforcement officials need a warrant before installing the device. 132 S. Ct. 945, 949 (2012). Although the Court did not address the attachment of GPS devices in the private investigation context, its decision largely turned on the physical trespass involved in attaching a GPS device to another person’s vehicle. Id. The Court stated:
It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case: The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.
Id. Therefore, this ruling may be used to argue against private investigator installations of GPS devices since such installation would also constitute a physical trespass. Private investigation companies, such as Shannon Detective Services, Inc. (SDS), are now looking how to bypass the physical trespass issue altogether through implementation of other technologies that do not require physical attachment. Here are two examples of other technologies cited from the SDS website:
- Disability stingrays (a device that can triangulate a cell phone signal to locate a user) will become popular in the future as a way to skirt around the new GPS laws for law enforcement.
- Disability ping of cell phones (by accessing a user’s cell phone GPS chip) will also fill the gap created by GPS legislation since the FCC has mandated GPS chips to be installed in all new cell phones by 2018.
Your Most Valuable Financial Asset
What is your most valuable financial asset? According to Chicago Tribune columnist, Gregory Karp, for most people “the answer isn’t in their golden eggs, but in the goose that laid them.” That is, their most valuable financial asset is not their car, house or retirement account, but their ability to make money.
When you suffer from long-term or short-term disability, you will likely be unable to continue working and, therefore, will lose your most valuable financial asset – your ability to earn money. For many Americans without disability insurance, this financial blow can be devastating.
For this reason, in his article entitled Disability Insurance Primer, Karp stresses the importance of long-term disability insurance and provides a basic overview of what disability insurance is, what it is not, and how to find an appropriate plan. The article is a good source for those seeking disability insurance or looking to change their current disability benefits plan.
Ed Comitz, disability insurance attorney in the greater Phoenix area, Tucson, and Flagstaff, also provides answers to frequently asked disability insurance questions. For example, in his blog post, Disability Insurance Policies: Which type do you own?, Mr. Comitz describes fundamental differences between individual, group and employer-sponsored disability insurance policies. In another post, How to Get a Copy of Your Disability Insurance Policy, Mr. Comitz explains the process of obtaining a copy of your policy from the insurance company. Finally, in How Specific is Your “Own Occupation”?, Mr. Comitz provides understanding about key terms within your policy and how insurers may try to classify these terms in a way to deny your disability insurance claim.
Unum Plays Semantic Games in Denying Benefits for a “Heart Attack”
We have previously blogged that even Unum’s U.K. CEO agrees that Unum’s policies contain confusing language. Recently, Unum took advantage of its unclear disability policy language — in this case, a policy containing the layman’s term “heart attack” — to deny benefits to the widower of a policyholder who had died, in medical terms, of “atheroscopic coronary artery disease.”
Annette Frie’s disability insurance policy from Unum stated that a $30,000.00 benefit would be paid to her spouse if she were to die from a “heart attack.” However, because “heart attack” is not a medical term likely to be used on a death certificate, her husband Jim Frie suspects Unum deliberately used that term on its policy in order to deny claims by splitting semantic hairs.
When Mr. Frie submitted his claim, Unum sent him a letter offering its condolences but denying the claim on the basis that it “didn’t meet the definition of the specified illness covered by the policy.” The medical examiner who had signed Mrs. Frie’s death certificate then sent two letters to Unum explaining that Mrs. Frie’s coronary artery disease had caused the heart attack. In response, Unum denied the claim two more times.
The Minnesota State Commerce Department subsequently opened an investigation, but when Mr. Frie became impatient with the pace of the state’s investigation, he contacted FOX-9 investigators. Within 24 hours of being contacted by the news station about their investigation to expose this “fist-pounding outrage,” Unum called Mr. Frie with the news that the decision had been made to pay the claim.
Even commonly-used words and phrases can take on unexpected meanings within the context of a disability insurance policy, so it is important to consult an experienced disability insurance attorney to interpret the policy language when filing a claim.
Questions to Ask When Choosing
a Disability Insurance Attorney
For those looking for help with their disability insurance claims, choosing an attorney is an important step. However, it can often be difficult to determine whether a particular disability insurance lawyer is the right one for you to work with. Here are some general questions to ask to help you evaluate a potential lawyer or law firm.
1. How many cases does the attorney take on each year?
2. What percentage of the attorney’s practice is devoted to disability insurance claims?
3. Does the attorney exclusively work with individual policy claimants, or does he/she handle ERISA and Social Security cases?
4. Has the attorney published any articles or been interviewed about disability insurance topics?
5. What insurance companies has the attorney dealt with?
6. Does the attorney offer comprehensive representation or short term assistance?
7. Does the attorney’s fee structure work for you?
8. What does the attorney expect to accomplish with your claim?
Selecting the right disability insurance attorney to help with your claim is a decision not to take lightly. You should never be afraid to ask questions, and the attorney will be glad to answer them.
Out of Contract Demands:
When You Can Tell Your Disability Insurer “No”
Every disability insurance policy is a contract. With this contract come certain rights and obligations on the part of the disability insurance company and on the part of the policyholder. The insurer promises to pay you disability benefits and you promise to fulfill certain conditions. One of the most important things to remember about this contractual relationship is that if it’s not in your policy, you don’t have to do it.
Often, disability insurers will ask a person filing for disability benefits to do certain things or provide certain information in order to qualify for benefits. What every policyholder needs to realize is that the disability insurer cannot force you to do something that is not outlined in your policy. There are many examples of disability insurance companies’ demands that may not be required under the terms of the policy, such as:
• That you see a certain type of doctor
• That you undergo surgery for your disabling condition
• That you get a particular treatment or therapy
• That you provide your Social Security or workers’ compensation claim file
• That you attend a certain type of examination
• That you complete detailed descriptions of your daily activities
• That you allow a private investigator into your home
The bottom line is that a policyholder filing for disability insurance benefits should know what their policy requires and what it doesn’t. The best way to be sure an insurer doesn’t get away with making extra-contractual demands is to have a disability insurance attorney review your policy and advocate with the company for your rights.
Even Unum CEO Admits Their Insurance Policy Language Is Confusing
As we have blogged many times, even seemingly straightforward terms like “total disability” or “appropriate medical treatment” in your disability insurance policy may have different meanings in the context of a disability insurance claim than they do in everyday English. In a video posted on YouTube, Jack McGarry, CEO, Unum UK, is surprisingly candid in addressing how their insurance policy language is confusing.
Insurance is so confusing, in large part because we’ve made it that way, the insurance companies. We use acronyms instead of words, we use lingo instead of language. We’ve made it easy for us to communicate with each other, but we’ve made it very, very difficult for consumers to understand what we’re saying, and we need to change that.
[Consumers] are confused by our products, they don’t understand the choices, they don’t understand the coverage, and one of the reasons they don’t understand it is because the language we use to describe it, they find it confusing, and a little scary, so we’re partnering with Plain English to help simplify the language we use to describe what we do so everybody can understand it.
While Unum is apparently taking steps to clarify the language in its policies in the United Kingdom, it is of little help to American insureds who purchased policies written in language that is, in the words of Unum’s UK CEO, ”very, very difficult for consumers to understand.” The help of an experienced disability insurance attorney to interpret the language of your policy can be critical in ensuring you receive the benefits to which you are entitled.
Will New Demands on Healthcare Professionals Lead to More Disabled Doctors?
A recent article by health insurance writer Allison Bell explains, from an insurance industry perspective, why the new administrative demands on health care professionals might lead to an increase in doctors facing disability:
[I]t seems reasonable to ask whether, for example, the new pressure to convert to electronic health records will lead to some physicians at small or understaffed practices to develop carpal tunnel syndrome and blurry vision from trying to enter, or at least, check, many of the records themselves. Will sleep deprivation related to an increase in workload cause or aggravate objective conditions, such as lack of exercise, obesity and high blood pressure, that will, in turn, lead to an increase in the number of doctors with disability insurance who suffer heart attacks. strokes and disabling car accidents?
Healthcare professionals: Do you think the push for electronic health records and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will lead to an increase in disabled doctors?
