Unum Lawsuit

UnumProvident is perhaps the largest disability insurer in the States. It falls under Unum Group which is among the Fortune 500 insurance companies. Over the years however, dissatisfied shareholders have filed numerous lawsuits against Unum accusing it of breach of contract and scam. Among the people making the claims, lawyers, small business owners and doctors who wanted to protect their loved ones from the challenges of becoming disabled and consequently being rendered jobless topped the list. They had managed to acquire policies that could not be revoked and whose premium could not be increased. But to their utter surprise, most of their claims were denied while some policy holders’ premiums were cancelled. This clearly amounted to breach of contract and some form of rip-off. The affected parties failed to settle the matter with the defendants hence they had no otherwise but seek legal justice.

Many Unum lawsuits have ended up being costly for the insurer provider since the plaintiffs occasionally benefited from monetary settlement meant to cushion their experienced as well as anticipated damages. For instance, in the year 2001, the jury of a certain Florida court house granted one, John Tedesco, $36.7 million compensation. John Tedesco who is a former ophthalmologist alleged that Unum refused to acknowledge his disability claim at a time when doctors had apparently diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease and a herniated disc.

In a class action lawsuit filed against Unum in a New York courthouse, the plaintiff allege that the defendant has a tendency of unlawfully discriminating against and still continues to discriminate against many thousands of disabled or rather physically challenged Americans. The lawsuit sought unspecified amount of settlement and requested the court to make Unum revisit all of the claims it has previously turned down in the past years.

Another lawsuit that happened in mid 2008 had the Unum group settle $40 million to the plaintiff. Although the group did not take responsibility for the claims made against it, they resolved to create a financial platform to share out the $40 million to share holders who bought Unum securities for the sake of maintaining good public relationships. This lawsuit claimed that the insurance company made deceptive statements to potential and actual investors between the years 2000 and 2003 so that they could falsely raise its stock share value.

Last but not the least is a lawsuit against Unum filed by an urologist. The plaintiff, the urologist, claimed that the defendant failed to pay him benefits for the disability dating back as 1996. This case was re evaluated sometimes in the year 2010, sixteen years later when the plaintiff could not help claiming his situation was discriminated against. His allegations- he was a long term disability policyholder with the defendant but when he began suffering from ankle pains that limited his long hour standing abilities, consequently preventing him from carrying out his urologic surgeries, the insurer failed him. To this, he submitted a total disability claim but Unum turned down his claim. After re-visiting the case, the plaintiff was awarded with hundreds of thousands of dollars.