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The first thing I want to say is..please, please do your research about insurance companies. A woman who had been insured for some time for disability insurance contacted her insurance company because she needed some cancer related treatments. She had stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and it was spreading all over her body. The insurance company began requiring her to send information. They needed more information.
After several months of doing such things, they denied her the short term disability money she needed at that time. It was due to the fact that despite all the forms she filled out and sent it, she had not proved to their satisfaction that she was disabled. The company she had worked for could not give her another job. She was unemployable. Yet, the insurance company said she didn’t prove a disability.
In the meanwhile, bills were piling up. As the insurance company kept stalling her by asking for more and more information, she was losing one thing at a time and the bills kept on coming. So, she hired an attorney. She then filed for long term disability instead of short term. Her policy stated that she would receive 60 percent of her salary if disabled. Said insurance company then objected to her situation saying that before all this, she had another form of cancer that is unrelated and therefore is not eligible for the insurance coverage. She had been cancer free for some time prior to all this.
The thing is, if the insurance company can delay and deny claims or pepper the claimant with all sorts of delaying tactics, the claimant will likely give up and go away. Many insurance companies hope you do that since then they do not have to pay out a claim that the customer has paid premiums on for years to that company. The problem is that there is no law or oversight group to change this. No one is going to force the company to do the right thing. Therefore, they can pretty much do as they please without penalty. They can be dog-slow and no one can change that. They can pepper you with all sorts of forms to fill out. You can be at that for months before they decide to say no to discourage you. And there is very little you can do about any of it.
Unfortunately, this can be a life or death situation for many people who need the money to survive. Many do not because the insurance company bets that you will die before you can make them pay out to you. I firmly believe that there ought to be more regulation on the industry. Such companies should be required to answer claims within a short period of time. They should be expected to get all of the information that they need right away and make such decisions based on the claim rather than their pocketbooks. This SHOULD happen but it will not. This is as difficult as it is to make the oil companies pay us back for all the money they have been ripping off of the people at the gas pumps.
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