In this video Marc Whitehead, a Board Certified Disability Attorney, discusses the possibility that some long term disability insurance policies are not limited by ERISA law.
Most peoples Long Term Disability policies are governed under strict ERISA law. It’s likely that if you get your insurance from an employee benefits plan you fall under ERISA and have to follow the guidelines outlined by at law. Those of you how individual pay for your own insurance, such as free lancers and small business owners are not governed by ERISA. This is good, because ERISA is a law designed to protect insurance companies at the expense of policy holders.
By having your own individual plan, you’ve given yourself far more of an ability to stand up to your insurer and fight for your rights. A downside to having your own individual policy is that it becomes a lot hard to discuss with an attorney about what your need to do for your disability claim because every single state has different rules.
One thing that doesn’t change between states is that you want to give your insurance company the opportunity to do the right thing before your file your lawsuit.
A few things you should know-
Put all of your communication in writing
Give time for your insurer to reply
Look at your contractual remedies
Contractual remedies is something you may want to talk to an experience attorney about because they will know exactly what to look for.
A few of the possible routes that you can go include things like-
A Bad Faith Claim
Breach of Contract
Loss of Credit
Deceptive Trade Practices
Insurance Codes Statutory Damages
What all of these really mean is that your insurance company didn’t pay the disability benefits that they should have and it caused your problems that the road. If you have to go to court and deal with a drawn out legal battle, don’t worry. Unlike with ERISA policy holders, Non-ERISA policy holders can try and get all of their damages and their attorneys fees reimbursed.
