Frequently, employers will terminate an employee when their disability insurance company denies the employee their disability benefits. When this unfortunate situation happens, the disabled employee may be forced to seek health benefits under what is known as COBRA. If you qualify for COBRA and your rights have been violated, you need to know.
COBRA is the Federal law requiring employers to provide certain employees with continuation of group health coverage. Not all employers are required to offer COBRA and not all employees are eligible for COBRA (i.e. companies with less than 20 employees, certain church and federal government plans are not subject to COBRA).
Employees have the right to elect COBRA coverage if one of the following events occurs:
- Termination of covered employee employment,
- A reduction of employee’s hours of employment,
- The death of a covered employee,
- A divorce or legal separation from the covered employee,
- Ceasing to be a dependent child under the terms of the plan,
- The covered employee’s becoming entitled to Medicare, and
- Employer bankruptcy (when impacting retiree plans).
If an employer stops providing coverage for all employees, you will not be eligible for COBRA benefits. Furthermore, employees terminated for “gross misconduct” are not eligible for COBRA benefits.
For a free legal consultation, call 800-562-9830
If you are a covered employee, spouse or dependent child of a covered employee and where not properly offered COBRA benefits, you may have a case against the employer. One of the best lawyers in the country regarding COBRA benefits is Attorney Talia Ravis of Shawnee Mission, Kansas. See assists people all over the country with Cobra issues and we highly recommend her. See www.erisakc.com.
Disability Insurance companies such as Unum, Cigna, Aetna and Prudential often write their policies so to take full advantage of ERISA rules and regulations to make it difficult for a disabled person to get receive benefits or to keep them for the entire length of the term of their insurance policy. Other insurance companies with a large share of the disability market include The Hartford, Standard Insurance, SunLife, MetLife and Liberty Mutual, Provident, CNA, John Hancock, Colonial, AXA Equitable, New York Life, Guardian, Penn Mutual.
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If you have questions, ask disability attorney, Marc Whitehead by visiting disabilitydenials.com or you can download Marc Whitehead’s free E-book, Disability Insurance Policies-How to Unravel the Mystery and Prove Your Claim.
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