Disability Insurer Profiles #8: Mutual of Omaha

Mutual of Omaha (also known as United of Omaha Life Insurance) was founded in 1909 and is now one of the largest insurance carriers in the United States, with an operating income of $554.8 million and revenues of $8.7 billion in 2017.[1]

If you have a claim with Mutual of Omaha, you may be asked to produce “objective” evidence of your disability.  Sometimes, this is an express requirement of the policy. In other instances it is simply a question asked on the claim forms (for example, an attending physician statement). Or sometimes it is question asked in a peer-to-peer call from the insurance company’s doctor to your doctor. Regardless of how it comes up, characterizing a claim as being based on purely “subjective” reports (as opposed to being based on “objective” evidence) is a common tactic that Mutual of Omaha (and other insurance companies) use to deny and terminate claims.

For example, in Schatz v. Mutual of Omaha[2], a nurse filed a disability claim due to chronic back pain. Notably, at the time she filed for disability, the nurse was working as a medical review nurse for Mutual of Omaha. Nevertheless, Mutual of Omaha denied her claim and refused to pay her benefits under her policy.

In fact, when the nurse and her attorney sued Mutual of Omaha to challenge the denial, the fact that she worked for Mutual of Omaha ended up hurting her case, to some extent, because the court assumed that Mutual of Omaha understood her particular job duties. Consequently, the court excused Mutual of Omaha’s failure to conduct a detailed inquiry into the physical demands of her position—an omission that otherwise may have proved significant.

In addition, Mutual of Omaha claimed that the nurse’s medical records were not “consistent” or “conclusive,” pointing to a statement from the nurse’s long-time treating physician stating that his opinion that she should not work was not based on “some new objective finding” but was based on the nurse’s reports that “she couldn’t tolerate the pain, that she couldn’t do it and it wasn’t getting better.”

Similarly, the physician selected to perform an independent medical exam stated that, although the nurse reported “multiple subjective complaints,” the physical exam was “essentially normal.” In light of these statements, the court ultimately held that Mutual of Omaha’s denial of benefit was proper, under an abuse of discretion standard.

These are just a few examples of things to be aware of if you have a Mutual of Omaha policy or claim with Mutual of Omaha. Mutual of Omaha policies are not all identical, and they are updated frequently. Your policy may or may not include the provisions mentioned above. If you are considering filing a disability claim, you should consult with an experienced disability insurance attorney to learn more about your policy and any potential issues related to your particular claim.

 

[1] https://www.mutualofomaha.com/our-story/newsroom/article/mutual-of-omaha-reports-2017-financial-results.

[2] Schatz v. Mut. of Omaha Ins. Co., 220 F.3d 944 (8th Cir. 2000).

 

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