If your employer offers group disability insurance from Liberty Mutual, choosing it may help you to protect yourself if you suffer from a disabling condition at some point during your career with your company. Disability insurance replaces a portion of your former income while you are unable to work after you have exhausted an elimination period. Unfortunately, Liberty Mutual sometimes denies valid disability claims. The experienced team at The Law Office of Andrew Reichardt helps clients to appeal their denials of their claims from Liberty Mutual.
BACKGROUND ON LIBERTY MUTUAL
Liberty Mutual was founded in 1912 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The company employs more than 50,000 people and brings in average annual revenues of $38.5 billion. It operates worldwide and offers a broad array of insurance products, including automobile, health, life, workers’ compensation, surety, fire and disability insurance.
DISABILITY INSURANCE FROM LIBERTY MUTUAL
Liberty Mutual offers group disability insurance policies to workers through payroll deductions. Workers may choose short-term disability coverage, long-term disability coverage or both. After you exhaust your elimination period, you should begin receiving your short-term disability benefits. If you then exhaust those benefits, your long-term benefits should start if you have both types of coverage. The benefits provide you with a percentage of your income for the specified time periods listed in your policy.
APPEALING A DENIAL FROM LIBERTY MUTUAL
Liberty Mutual often denies claims for disability benefits. If you are denied, you will receive a notification by postal mail. Your notice will list the reasons that Liberty Mutual has used to deny your claim. It will also contain information about the company’s appeals process. It is important that you pay attention to the listed deadline for filing your appeal. Because group disability insurance policies fall under the ERISA laws, you are required to appeal a denial within the company prior to filing a lawsuit in court. You should take care to follow the deadline because if you miss it, you will not be able to recover your benefits.
After receiving your denial notice, contact Liberty Mutual and ask the company to provide you with your entire claim file. It will include the evidence that Liberty Mutual used to deny you. Bring your file and your notice to your appointment with Andrew Reichardt. He will review the information to determine the best way to proceed.
Andrew may advise you to continue seeing your doctor and to submit to additional tests and evaluations. This is to help your claim by building additional evidence that is favorable to add to your file. By doing so, this may help you to build a stronger claim so that you are more likely to win your internal appeal. If your appeals are exhausted within the company and you need to file a lawsuit, you will only be able to rely on whatever information is contained in your file. It makes sense to make certain that your file contains as much positive information about the validity of your disability claim as possible.
It is important that you are completely honest about your symptoms and their severity with your attorney and your doctor. If you try to exaggerate, Liberty Mutual may use that as evidence that you are malingering. Try to keep your oral communications with the company to a minimum and insist that everything is sent to you in writing. It is possible to win an appeal of a denial of disability benefits from Liberty Mutual. Contact The Law Office of Andrew Reichardt today for help with your appeal.