The Rebirth of Unum

December 15, 2010, 10:30AM. By Gordon Gibb

Chattanooga, TNOnce upon a time there was Unum Provident, a massive global insurer that was reviled by its policyholders and even some of its employees. There were sensational media reports of unfairness and bad faith practices on the part of Unum. There were government investigations.

Then a change of leadership happened, followed by a name change to Unum a few years ago, together with a rebranding.

As you can see…




Unum is now presented as a dynamic company that's not only a great place to hold your Unum insurance, but also a great place to work. Of course, a video produced by the company is inherently biased in its favor. It is controlling the message.

But to its credit, Unum has been winning awards in terms of employee satisfaction and is consistently voted one of the best employers both in the insurance industry by its peers and in Chattanooga, where Unum's North American operations are based.

There are a lot of good vibes in the Unum Group these days.

However, are those vibes extending to policyholders?

In the past, Unum Provident was accused of stiffing policyholders with legitimate claims in an assumed effort to maximize profits by mitigating legitimate disability insurance claims. To be fair, there will always be policyholders who attempt to pull a fast one on their insurance company by making a false claim. An insurer, thus, has to remain diligent to prove such claims are, indeed, fraudulent.

However, is Unum Group continuing to deny legitimate claims?

For the purposes of this video, which is set to the tune "New Shoes" by Paolo Nutini and began showing up on YouTube a few years ago, Unum insurance is using the song as a metaphor for a rebirth. The message here is that the Unum of today is a vast departure from the First Unum of yesterday.

Time will tell if that is indeed true—or little more than clever marketing.