Lincoln Financial LTD Insurance
Did Lincoln Financial Long-Term Disability Insurance Deny Your Benefits?
If you have Lincoln Financial Insurance for your long-term disability coverage — and when you need them the most they refuse to pay your benefits — you’re not alone.
Lincoln Financial is a large, national company based in Pennsylvania. And many big, high-profile employers in Detroit and Michigan use Lincoln Financial for long-term disability.
Employees of Wal-Mart have Lincoln Financial. So do employees of Comcast.
This insurance is supposed to be there for you when health problems make it impossible for you to work. It’s your protection against financial ruin.
But insurance companies are in business to make money, not maximize your benefits.
When it wants to keep you from getting benefits, Lincoln Financial will use tactics that are common across the insurance industry.
At Levine Benjamin Law Firm, we’ve seen it all before.
And we know how to fight back.
Get Your Maximum Benefits:
The 3 Common Insurance Company Tactics
Whether you have Lincoln Financial or any other insurance carrier for your long-term disability, you could run into similar obstacles.
These are three of the frequent methods they use to deny benefits:
- Tell you all you need to do is write a letter.
- Shift the standard that determines if you qualify for benefits, even after you’ve already been receiving benefits.
- Conduct surveillance on you, looking for something to hold against you.
The lawyers at Levine Benjamin know how to counter all of these tactics.
It’s free to talk to one of our lawyers about your case.
When you can’t work because of health problems, writing a letter to the long-term disability insurance carrier is not enough.
1. The Insurance Company Tells You Just to Write a Letter.
When your insurer rejects your claim — or terminates benefits you already were receiving — you need to appeal the decision.
Sometimes, the insurance company will tell you to “just write us a letter.”
Don’t fall for it.
It may seem like they’re trying to be helpful, but they’re not.
A letter saying how miserable you feel because of your medical problems doesn’t do much for your claim.
In fact, if that’s all you do, you could hurt your case.
You’ll miss the chance to submit new statements and evidence challenging insurance company experts who said you don’t need benefits.
Instead of writing a letter, now’s a good time to get a fresh doctor’s checkup, creating a report that counters the insurance company’s reasons for denying your benefits.
A Levine Benjamin lawyer can help you navigate this process.
Sometimes long-term disability insurance companies end your benefits by switching to a different definition of disability.
2. You Get Benefits for Two Years, Then They Stop.
After you’ve been receiving long-term disability benefits for two years, insurance companies will often switch you to a tougher standard to qualify for benefits — and terminate your payments.
During the first two years, they say you can receive benefits because your health prevents you from doing the same job you had before, what they call your “own job.”
After two years, they say you can only qualify for benefits if you can’t do “any job.”
And any job can mean anything that exists in the economy, even if it has nothing to do with your background and experience.
The key to fighting this is getting a vocational expert to assess your situation and report on whether you truly could do any job out there.
This is another area where it helps to have an attorney from Levine Benjamin.
Sometimes long-term disability insurance companies track your actions looking for signs that you’re too healthy for benefits.
3. Insurance Companies Conduct Surveillance on You.
Terrible as it sounds, insurance companies will sometimes send people to watch you in public, looking for evidence that your condition isn’t debilitating.
They’ll sit in the grocery store parking lot, trying to get pictures of you loading heavy grocery bags into your car. No matter that you have to get food for your family — and the grocery trip will drain your energy for days.
They’ll monitor your social media, looking for signs that you’re doing something that requires stamina, like taking a trip.
They’ll even scour your medical records looking for a recommendation from your doctor that you should go to the gym.
The insurance company then uses that as a tipoff for a place to catch you exerting yourself — so they can argue you’re too healthy for benefits.
A lawyer can protect your rights under your long-term disability insurance policy.
Get Someone to Fight Back
If Lincoln Financial — or any long-term disability insurer — is doing any of these things to you, you need to take steps to protect your rights.
Get some legal strength in your corner.
A Levine Benjamin lawyer can step in to make sure they pay everything you’re owed.