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Last Night, I was cruising through 100+ emails and I noticed a trend in the spam that snuck through our filter. These spam emails were from lawsuit marketing companies regarding UNUM Insurance and their systematic attempts to deny disability insurance benefits to their clients. Interestingly, that is a walk down memory lane for me.
17 years ago, a married couple walked into my law office claiming UNUM had done just that. I was a young solo practitioner in Jupiter, Florida who just left the U.S. Department of Justice. I was shocked at the facts of the cased. This man had significant injuries from an accident in New York. The injury left him with significant back problems, which caused him to become medically disabled. Fortunately, he had purchased disability insurance years earlier through UNUM insurance and two other carriers.
UNUM decided sent him to a Physical Therapy Center for a checkup after 7 years of retirement due to disability, not with an MD but rather with a Physical Therapist. The Therapist determined that my client should immediately return to work as an orthodontist even though his back had only gotten worse over the past 7 years and he had not been keeping up with his training. We fought UMUM for a year and finally reinitiated the full disability insurance benefits. It became obvious that UNUM was simply trying to starve my client out then settle with him for a lot less then he deserved. It was a terrible lesson that your own insurance company is out to get you when they can.
After 17 years of representing people against insurance companies, nothing has changed at UNUM. They continue to deny their own insured’s their benefits. Imagine how disappointing and angering it is to pay premiums for years only to become disabled and have your insurance company tell you they will not pay the benefits you purchased with the insurance.
Every first party insurance claim we handle, whether it is for automobile insurance benefits, disability insurance benefits, PIP benefits, property damages or hurricane insurance benefits, sink hole claims and benefits, angers me that the insurance company won't live up to their end of the deal. They point fingers and claims that the "system" is full of fraud and unfair. From my perspective that is a false and exaggerated claim to legitimize, their desire to avoid paying benefits.
Something great happened in my first UNUM case. My client and I became lifelong friends. He is my daughter's godfather. His son, Carl, who was a law student at that time, graduated and has worked with me for the past 15 years. I guess I need to thank UNUM for many things.
I need to say Thank You for that great case. Thank you for paying my client's attorney fees. Thank you for teaching me how to deal with first party insurance claims. Thank you for a multitude of cases from then until now, not only for my firm but firms around the country. But most of all, thank you for introducing me to my good friends, Sol & Maxine, and their son, Carl, who were the hidden treasures in an old UMUM disability case.
