Quiat on Claims : New York Disability Insurance Lawyer & Attorney : Michael Quiat : Uscher Quiat Uscher & Russo Law Firm : ERISA, Denied Claims

You may not always need a lawyer when making a legal claim, but when you do, you really, really do need one. This is particularly true in ERISA and disability claims against insurance companies. Why?

Because they employ armies of experienced and knowledgeable lawyers and claims adjusters who all have one purpose in mind – to destroy your claim ASAP so they can keep the money your claim represents. It is in the very nature of insurance claims because insurance is a business and all businesses are after profits.

Insurance companies fight claims like yours a thousand times a day.
                      You get only one shot to get it right.

Because fighting claims such as yours is all they do day in and day out, these insurance company minions know ERISA and disability insurance law and how to use this knowledge to try to sink your claim.

That’s why you need an attorney who handles ERISA and insurance law day in and day out. Why should you, as a claimant, use an attorney who is unfamiliar with the law and the procedures necessary to successfully file and prosecute a claim, while your enemy, the insurer, has knowledgeable experts defending it?

Insurance claims, by their nature, are usually hotly contested because insurance companies make money by not paying. Being profit oriented, they have many ways to get around a claim. They study these methods and use them without compunction whenever the opportunity arises.

Some of their common methods are:

• Getting you to “wimp” out.
  
• Subjecting you to a “no see’em” IME.
  
• Losing your paperwork.
  
• Asking for more and more paperwork.

• Secret video and social media checks.

This is only part of the arsenal insurers use to fight claims like yours each and every day. And, you can be sure that if you make a claim, the insurance company’s natural instinct it to deny it by using any or all of the methods listed above.

Know this for sure: When you make claim, be prepared for a battle to the bitter end.

That way you’ll be neither surprised nor disappointed.
 

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We come to the end of another year and nothing much has changed for disability income insurance claimants.

* Insurance companies are just as focused on denying claims as they ever were.
* Disabled policyholders are still put through a “meat grinder” when it comes to trying to establish a claim.
* Insurers maintain their “gotcha” attitude, nit picking at every little item they can lay their fingers on to try to build a case for denial.
* None of the big boys – UNUM, Prudential, MetLife, Cigna seem to be improving their claim “approval” scores.
* “Independent” Medical Exam (IME) doctors still mainly feed at the insurance company table, making it extremely unlikely that they are “independent”.
* People who earn a living by working or in the professions still are getting short shrift from insurers at the worst time in their lives – when they become disabled and have no income.

With all of the advances in technology over the past dozen years, one would hope for even a smidgen of an advance in the social outlook of insurance companies vis-a-vis their insureds.
No such luck. The ages old insurance battle is still a battle.

What we can do about it is what we have always done about it – give our clients what we see as the best legal advice and help and as much moral support as we possibly can.

What we can hope for is a realization by the insurance industry that unreasonable reluctance to pay disabled policyholders, who are down and out, what their policies call for, is immoral and not in their long term best interests.

A New Year brings new hope, forlorn as it may be.

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