Not all insurance claims are accepted. Some are denied. If you feel that your long term disability benefits were wrongfully denied or wrongfully terminated, you have the option of suing the insurance company. The purpose of suing the insurance company is to try to obtain or regain the benefits that were taken from you or not given to you.
The Process of Suing
If you’ve been denied long term disability or if your long term disability payments have been stopped and you feel that the insurance company is wrong in refusing to pay your benefits, you have the option to sue. In rare cases you might be in the position where you have to sue the broker who sold you the policy. However, in most cases this isn’t the situation. You may find it necessary to sue your employer or a non-profit board of trustees responsible for administrating your long term disability plan.
You don’t send out a blanket sue request. When the appointed personal injury lawyer in Leamington sues an insurance company, you’re suing for the payments of the disability benefits you feel you are entitled to receive. Often there is a great deal of stress associated with having a claim denied. If this is the case and you can prove it, you may also have the option to sue for compensation for the mental distress experienced as a result of the high levels of stressed caused by the denial of your long term disability claim.
There are also some instances where you might be able to claim interest on the amounts claimed as well as a certain contribution from the insurance company or defendant for your legal fees.
Punitive damages are also an option for some lawsuits against insurance companies. This is not common and is only awarded if it can be proved that the insurance company was very harsh, vindictive or overall malicious.
Be prepared for a fight if you choose to sue an insurance company. In most cases, insurance companies will have the money to pay lawyers to fight lawsuits against them. At the same time, since the fight is not an evenly matched one, insurance companies are legally required to act in good faith. This means that it’s required to act fairly and not only it its own best interest when it comes to paying out insurance claims.
Bad Faith and Insurance Companies
In a perfect world every insurance company will treat the people it’s supposed to serve fairly. Unfortunately, there are instances where this doesn’t happen. When an insurance company uses its resources and money to harm the person or persons it’s supposed to be insuring, this is called acting in bad faith.
Some examples of an insurance acting in bad faith include the following:
• Stopping long term disability benefits suddenly and without telling you why, or providing insufficient reasons for cutting off benefits.
• The insurance company hires its own medical professionals to dispute the reports you have from several medical professionals who say you aren’t able to work. The insurance company ignores the reports of multiple doctors in favor of the report received by its own doctor.
• Late payments of your long term disability or the missing of payments.