I think it is exactly the appropriate time of year to talk about Unum’s “scary, spooky and shady” claims practices that are heralding 4th quarter profitability and causing insureds a great deal of grief.
Unum’s investigations appear to be over the top scary to say the least. I received a call this week from a Unum insured who suffered a brain injury as a result of an accident. He has been on claim for the past 12 years and hasn’t had any problems with Unum until recently.
According to this insured’s report Unum’s investigators were observed following his wife, which of course, scared her enough to return home in tears. In addition, he noticed his neighbors stopped talking to him about the same time he noticed surveillance equipment facing his house but attached to his neighbor’s roof. “Can Unum actually conduct surveillance from my neighbor’s house and property?”, he asked me. “Of course they can”, I replied, as long as they have your neighbor’s permission. Seems to me though a warrant might have been needed in this instance.
Approaching his neighbor for clarification, the insured found it impossible to have a conversation since she responded, “I don’t have to talk with you about this.” I’ve heard that G4S and HUB investigators were conducting “activities checks”, talking with neighbors, but I had no idea it was this bad, or underhanded.
Maybe some of the attorneys who read this blog might chime in, but disclosing any information to neighbors, in my opinion, would be way outside of Unum’s privacy policy. And, disturbing the neighborhood peace is just plain nasty and mean. There’s no proof the insured IS NOT disabled and therefore anything said to neighbors is conjecture and hearsay.
Likewise, Unum’s claims handlers are running amuck deliberately misrepresenting policy provisions. Claims handlers are obviously led by the nose by managers looking to roll in excessive profits and gain brownie points with the VPs. What little claims handlers know about policy adjudication these days convinces me they wouldn’t know WHAT provisions to misinterpret successfully. There are ghosts behind the madness.
Attorneys aren’t particularly helpful either when they advise insureds to “go with the flow otherwise Unum will deny your claim.” An attorney I’ve had some encounters with in the past, who usually restricts her business to wealthy insureds, won’t defend her client entirely unless he can come up with $10,000 retainer. My guess is this attorney and others like her will gradually take all of the insured’s money he has until the claim is denied. If he can’t pay her the $10,000 she’s asking for she will likely refuse the appeal and future litigation Very questionable ethics if you ask me. Attorneys are often the problem, not the solution.
In any event, insureds can always depend on Unum for the “trick” and not the “treat”, a fact that Unum insureds would do well to remember. A horrible way to do business that no one seems to want to do anything about.
