Sandersville, GAApparently, the giant health insurer Unum knows more about medicine than Morgan’s doctors. She collected Unum long-term disability benefits after her doctors deemed her disabled due to degenerative arthritis, but she was cut off after two years. “Why did I ever pay into this Unum policy in the first place?” says Morgan.
Even though Morgan has reams of paperwork from doctors and an orthopedic surgeon stating she is disabled, Unum disagreed. To make their decision even more galling, Unum never sent Morgan to one of their own independent medical examiners. “Unum decided that I was no longer disabled, but how they can determine that degenerative arthritis gets better is beyond comprehension,” Morgan adds.
Morgan has a university education and she taught in public schools. Her condition got to the point where she was no longer able to stand for any length of time and teaching required her to be on her feet almost all day. Unum told her that she could get a desk job. “They said I could do something like filing papers but nobody will hire me because I am overqualified,” she says. “Besides, why should I be forced to accept a job at minimum wage?”
Unum was paying Morgan $1,500 per month because she opted for a premium that only paid out that maximum amount. She was cut off in September 2011, with just one month’s notice. “There wasn’t a job that I could go to and I didn’t have any prospects,” Morgan explains.
“I looked for tutoring work, and finally in May 2012, I found a job tutoring math at college level; I worked 20 hours a week and made about $1,000 per month. After Unum cut off my LTD, I bumped into an insurance agent who wrote policies for the school system. He said, ‘You are still getting your benefits, right?’ He was surprised and said that Unum had no right to cut me off. He told me to write Unum and reopen my claim, which I did.
“Unum gave me the run-around for nine months. They kept stringing me along, asking for more reports, more doctor’s notes, back and forth until I was sick of it. I believe they did all of this on purpose to wear me down, one of their bad faith tactics. I don’t think my Unum representative ever intended to reopen my case. It was a complete waste of time, for me and my doctors.
“I finally called an attorney and I sent him my policy. He asked me to get more information from Unum, everything in my files that pertains to my disability. I sent him 25 pages of information regarding the rider to my policy and I signed a letter giving him permission to get all information necessary from Unum. Now I am waiting for Unum to send me everything else.
“Here is another interesting fact: I dealt with one Unum agent for those two years that I was getting disability benefits. They kept asking me for follow-up reports and I always sent in everything they requested. Then in July of 2011, another agent called and said they were looking at my policy and they were going to close it; I figure he was the close-out specialist. They sent me two checks, my final payment for August and September. Why did they give me two checks at once? Did they think that would just make me go away? That tactic was just too obvious. It is disgusting, considering all that money Unum makes off people, and they probably spend millions of dollars training their staff in bad faith tactics. I’m glad to have this opportunity to tell the public not to buy into a Unum policy.”
Morgan is seeing her Unum attorney next week and will start the appeals process. She will report back to LaywersandSettlements - stay tuned.
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