Eleven Ways to Assure the Success of a Disability Claim, Understand ERISA, Avoid Long Term Disability Denials, and Beat Insurers Like UNUM

Many of the leading disability insurance companies have engaged in systematic
strategies to deny valid applications (“claims”) by policyholders for disability benefits,
resulting in unfair long term disability terminations and denials. 1 Aided by a federal law
known as ERISA, (Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974), they have been
given procedural advantages and have means at their disposal to intimidate and oppress
even the most well-informed “claimants.” 2
"Decisions whether and how to ensure that disability does not lead to poverty are
obviously of great societal importance…” 3 Since Social Security provides only a small
portion of earnings replacement, we depend on long term disability benefits, a form of
private insurance, to protect against the loss of one’s earning capacity, however as one
court noted: “An individual claimant who encounters an insurance company that is
disposed to deny valid claims must struggle to vindicate his rights at a time when he is
at his most vulnerable. Often a newly disabled

1 Early in J. Harold Chandler’s tenure as CEO of a predecessor entity of Unum/Provident Corporation, claims
representatives were pressured to deny valid claims. For example, Unum instituted a “Hungry Vulture” award for
employees who were especially adept at denying claims. The prize bore the motto, “Patience my foot, I’m gonna
kill something.” Dean, Frost, Disability Claim Denied! Business Week, Dec.22, 2003. By 2002 some of these claims
practices gained national attention as a result of investigative reporting of lawsuits brought by former Unum claims
processing employees who had target numbers for claim denials. Dateline (NBC television broadcast, Oct. 13,
2002); 60 Minutes (CBS television broadcast, Nov. 17,2002). Unum and other insurer’s practices have become
notorious in the courtrooms of America. Bennett v. Unum Life Ins. Co., 321 F.Supp. 2d 925, 934-935 (E.D. Tenn.
2004), Radford Trust v. First Unum Life Ins. Co., 321 F.Supp. 2d 226, 247 n.20 (D. Mass. 2004).

2 Langbein, “Trust Law as Regulatory Law: The Unum/Provident Scandal and Judicial Review of Benefit Denials
under ERISA” at 12 (Draft June 26, 2006 available at http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/2940.asp (Accepted for
publication in Northwestern University Law Review); Langbein, “The Supreme Court Flunks Trusts, *1990+ Supreme
Court Review 207 (1991); DeBofsky, “Disability Insurance Under the ERISA Law- Economic Security or Litigation
Nightmare?” (Accepted for publication in the Journal of Insurance Regulation (Winter 2007)).
3 Radford Trust v. Unum Life Insur. Co. of America, 321 F.Supp.2d 226, 240 (D. Mass. 2004).