In this video Marc Whitehead, Board Certified Disability Attorney, explains what Long Term Disability Benefits you can win if you sue under ERISA Law.
In past blogs I have written quite a bit about restrictions that you have under ERISA Law. But I haven’t spent a lot of time talking about what you can actually get if you sue and win you disability insurance claim. Obviously it is not going to be a huge settlement in the millions of dollars because ERISA prevents things like that. Just as ERISA prevents you from having a trial by jury and forces you to prove that the insurance abused it’s discretion. ERISA law may not allow you to force your insurance company into a huge cash settlement but that doesn’t mean that you won’t get any money. If you can prove that you should be getting benefits based on the policy that you are under the court will award you those benefits, including everything that your insurer should have been paying you from the day that you first made your claim. For many people this can end up being quite a hefty sum.
How do you enforce rights covered by the plan? Some times when insurers are sued for disability insurance claims they try to deny you things that your policy clearly states you should receive. Often they will try to claim obscure loopholes in the language or argue that you don’t qualify for one reason or another. So it is up to you and your attorney to show that you do qualify and that your plan covers what you need. You can sue to clarify rights to future benefits covered by the plan.
One of the good things under ERISA, is that when you win you can win for the duration of your policy. That means that you can use the ruling of a single claim to make sure that you continue to receive benefits and may not have to return to court to fight them again. While this is not absolute, it can certainly help.
One of the best decision you can make regarding your disability insurance law suit is to hire an experienced Attorney. There are many nuances to a lawsuit that an attorney will guide you through in order to win the benefits that you deserve.
