We were proud to have been retained by a 59-year-old Army veteran who, after his brave service, worked for a large utility company and suffered a number of mild impairments from his time in service to our country. He later became disabled from a different condition while working for his employer with UNUM disability insurance to “protect” him. It was clear that his disabling condition is separate from and not related to the service time impairments.
He came to our firm when UNUM had begun aggressively pursuing money from him, having recalculated his benefits and claiming an overpayment was made, and demanding that he pay the money back. When we examined his policy, it was clear his disability policy did not allow retroactive action, but UNUM ignored its own policy provision and took the money without our client’s permission.
Newfield Law Group provided detailed evidence to demonstrate that UNUM was not entitled to the offset and cited a body of case law to support that argument. When confronted with the powerful arguments supported by this evidence, UNUM conceded on the issue and was compelled to remove the offset from future benefits.
But this was not the first time that UNUM had attempted to cut the veteran’s benefits. They had already reduced his benefits from his receipt of Social Security disability. Several years earlier, UNUM had tried to cut our client’s benefits with the same tactic and was barred from doing this based on unethical conduct and the application of the doctrine of laches, which states that UNUM took too long to try to recover the money. Making matters worse for our client was UNUM’s attempt to use questionable calculations to decrease his benefits.
The bean counters at UNUM made a serious error in calculating a cost-of-living adjustment. Instead of making the COLA calculation based on his gross benefit, prior to any offsets from VA benefits, which is the correct way to process this increase, UNUM first deducted the offsets from his benefits and then calculated his cost-of-living increase on the smaller amount.
This type of error is not what you would expect from a large corporation, which makes us think that it is another deliberate means of reducing UNUM’s costs. We fought to stop UNUM from cutting our client’s benefits and make sure that the calculations used to generate his benefits were proper, appropriate, and correct. Our client is now receiving the correct amount of benefits from UNUM, as he deserves.
Simply because an insurance company makes a demand for payment or a claim for overpayment does not mean they are in the right. If your disability insurance company says your benefits are being reduced, don’t assume they are doing the right thing. Often, they are just trying to minimize your claim and hoping you won’t fight back.