Given my 25 year experience managing Unum claims, it’s been true that there is NOT much Unumm wouldn’t do in order to show positive profitability at the end of a quarter. I’ve lived through 90 Codes, integrating ERDs with financial reserves, managerial policies to code pre-emptive SSDI awards, you name it, in my opinion Unum’s done it.
Amidst rumors of Unum’s “not over turning denials on appeal” in order to compensate for COVID Life Insurance losses, June’s 2nd Qtr. results added another scam. I’ve received several calls from insureds telling me the same story, so it’s likely what Unum did was a companywide thing.
What Unum did was to pay out a partial (reduced) benefit if there was some piece of paperwork it couldn’t find, or allege they didn’t have. No letters were sent out to explain why insureds received partial benefits until after July 1. When insureds complained or resent the paperwork, benefits were restored.
Most people find it hard to understand that when a reduced benefit is sent out, the remainder to maximum duration financial reserve is shut down in order to have a huge hit to profitability by June 30. Unum doesn’t care one iota that on July 1st it needs to reverse and pay full benefit, because it got its hit by the end of the quarter or June 30th. Unum will then have another entire quarter to make up the reversals. Tricky, but effective to show a “paper profitability” that exists only by manipulating the timing of financial reserve reductions.
Stockholders and auditors should be taking note that the “Consistency Principal” of GAAP isn’t being met when any company’s accounting methods produce up-down, up-down financial statements. To manipulate financial reserves in the way I’ve described also involves poor management and decision-making. I have always suggested that Unum’s primary problems since the mid 80s has always been poor management and leadership. I seriously don’t think Unum cares much about not meeting accounting standards either.
Anyone who received a partial month’s benefit should push back, inquire what paperwork Unum alleges it didn’t have, submit it again, and get “the suspension” of benefits reversed. It’s a scam for profitability, and Unum knows it.
