Davis Law Group, P.S.

Denying the disabled - Unum - 2nd Worst Insurance Company

Earning the worst reputation among disability insurer’s because of its deny and delay strategy towards claims, Unum are is also constantly investigated because of their involvement in scandalous controversies.

Headquarters: Chattanooga, TN

Profits: $679 million

Assets: $52.4 billion

• Repeatedly denied a disabled woman with multiple sclerosis for three years, despite physician’s testimonies, and only agreed to pay the claim when she hired an attorney.
  
• Company has a history of denying claims and a CEO was forced out because of the repeated controversy surrounding claims-handling policies. (But he still left with $17 million in severance and pension benefits)
• In 2005 Unum settled with insurance commissioners from 48 states over their claims-handling practices and agreed to reopen more than 200,000 cases and pay $15 million.
• While being investigated in California, the investigation found that Unum systematically violated state insurance regulations and fraudulently denied claims using phony medical reports, policy misrepresentations, and biased investigations.
• Admitted to only reviewing 10 percent of the eligible cases for reopening under the terms of their legal settlement reached three years earlier.
• Denied the claim of a 43-year-old man who had a quintuple bypass and despite the doctor’s orders to stop working, Unum told him he was not disabled and could still work. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later described it as defying medical science.