Robert J. Boumis  |  July 30, 2014

Category: Consumer News

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UnumUnum Life Insurance Company of America was hit with a new Unum bad faith lawsuit has been filed by a policyholder, alleging that the insurance company has denied a legitimate insurance claim.

This new Unum bad faith lawsuit was filed by Melissa Faulkner. According to the text of her Unum lawsuit, she worked for a company called North Shore ARC, which provided disability insurance, underwritten by Unum.

Disability insurance is a type of insurance that is designed to provide a policyholder with a steady stream of income in the event that he or she becomes disabled. Typically, this is around 50 percent of their pre-disability income.

Faulkner’s Unum disability insurance lawsuit alleges that Unum wrongfully denied Faulkner’s claim, and states that she has exhausted Unum’s internal appeals process.

“Bad faith” is a legal term that means a party in a contract is using illegal means to get out of the terms of their contractual obligations. In the case of a Unum bad faith lawsuit, it is alleged that Unum is not living up to the terms of their disability insurance, wrongfully denying legitimate insurance claims.

In the past, Unum bad faith lawsuits have accused Unum of using a variety of tactics to deny legitimate insurance claims. This includes tactics like using in-house physicians, employed by Unum, to deny legitimate insurance claims.

Additionally, Unum has been accused of demanding excessive documentation and multiple physicians’ opinions in order to rule that a person is truly disabled. Still other Unum bad faith lawsuits have alleged that Unum sometimes “stretches” the definition of “disabled” in order to rule that a person is not in fact truly disabled.

These alleged practices have put Unum in the crosshairs of Unum bad faith lawsuits, government regulators, and even investigative journalists. A 2001 documentary on the television newsmagazine60 Minutes allegedly uncovered practices that included denial quotas and the infamous “hungry vulture award,” an award for the Unum agent that denied the most disability insurance claims. The program also interviewed a former Unum physician who was allegedly fired after they refused to overrule patients’ personal physicians’ determinations of disability.

Under federal law, a person may file a bad faith insurance lawsuit against a disability insurance provider if they believe the insurance company is acting in bad faith. An Unum disability insurance lawsuit may be the only way for some individuals to get their insurance policy enforced.

The Unum Bad Faith Lawsuit is Melissa S. Faulkner v. Unum Life Insurance Company of America, Case No. 6:14-cv-02704-TMC, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Greenville Division.

In general, Unum lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

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