Many calls are coming to our office with recent claim terminations from Prudential Financial. Claimants whose claims had been accepted for years were suddenly closed in August 2024. A review of Prudential’s stock chart may lend some guidance.
After reaching a high in late July, the stock price plummeted on August 5, 2024, losing nearly 20% of its value. Since that time, Prudential has taken aggressive claim actions, and its stock price has begun to rise, correlating with the increased claim activity that we have seen. We can only believe that the intense financial pressures imposed by upper management upon claim personnel – coupled with the claim personnel’s own financial interest (they own company stock as part of an incentive program) – has led to this increasingly antagonistic attitude toward claimants.
Read More: Do Most Disability Claims Get Denied the First Time?
What are some of Prudential’s go-to claim handling tactics for termination of group Long Term Disability Insurance claims?
Surveillance
This tactic is aggressive and occurs with increased frequency, often with claims of orthopedic impairments. Isolated activities are often blown out of proportion in an effort to demonstrate an inconsistency between reported activities and those observed. Often benign findings are championed by Prudential as greater in significance than the real state of the claimant. This strategy is two-fold: to terminate the claim and create a wedge between the claimant and their doctor.
Read More: Why UNUM Denied Your Long Term Disability Insurance Claim?
Field visits
Another tactic employed by Prudential is a field visit. An investigator, hired by the insurance company or a disability insurance company employee directly travels to a claimant’s home to get a look at the claimant, their surroundings and to gather information used to deny, delay, or terminate a claim.
Oftentimes, when such visits occur, surveillance has been obtained, and will be used to confront a claimant, to further undercut their claim.
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In House Vocational and Medical Reviews
Prudential employs medical and vocational personnel to consider and selectively review claim forms and other supportive disability documentation. We are seeing an increase in using these reviews to seek to create claim challenges to support denials or claim terminations, instead of acting as a fiduciary, and seeking how to pay claims, as is their legal obligation under ERISA.
This array of tactics is overlaid by a culture of claim bias. The Prudential employees are financially invested in the stock price of its company, as portions of their compensation are derived from Prudential stock. Thus, often the financial benefit of the company overpowers the fiduciary obligations under ERISA that are imposed upon Prudential.
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Before this becomes your situation, be proactive about your Prudential disability claim and understand your claim process with greater depth. Our practice takes on the battle of fighting Prudential for our clients. They don’t have to battle the endless obstacles put in the way of a claim. Instead, they are able to focus on their health.
