MetLife And The Hartford Threatening Insureds During Lock-Down Pandemic
Although I’ve been reporting that most insurance companies are flexible with deadlines, I probably spoke too soon. Today, I’ve reviewed information that suggests both The Hartford and MetLife in particular are still sending out threatening letters with...
COVID-19 Stimulus And Other Important Information – A Must Read
DCS, Inc. has been receiving many calls and emails concerning whether or not the federal stimulus recovery checks will be an “offset” from disability benefits. As always, to ensure accuracy I made inquiries to a few prominent attorneys to solicit their...
Third-Party Paper Chasers – A Conglomerate of Inefficiency
As most of my readers are aware (hopefully…), disability insurers have outsourced most of the functions required to investigate claims, including medical and occupational review, financial review, and “paper chasing.” Notable companies are PMSI,...
MetLife – A “Wacked” Company For Sure
For the last 20 years I’ve always described MetLife as a “bottom feeder” insurance company. My opinion was at first derived from the company’s complete lack of customer service and fair appeal procedures, but recently my opinion is based on...
Hanging In There…. Good News! 3/23/2020
God bless to everyone who has been hanging in there for the past couple of weeks. DCS, Inc. continues to work through may logistic problems with insurers, but please be advised that every claims handler I’ve spoken to has been very helpful and willing to work...
Crisis Update For Insureds – 3/19/2020
Information I have is that most insurance companies have shut their doors and have asked employees to work remotely from home. Although I have still been able to reach, and speak to, claims reps, I’ve had to be persistent with phone calls. Some handlers are only...
No More Answering Service For DCS, Inc.
As most of you are aware DCS, Inc. utilized an answering service to help with the numbers of calls received from readers of the blog. Clients and non-clients have mixed reviews about the value of an answering service, particularly for a disability Consultant. There...
Disasters, Pandemics and Disability Insurers
Quite a few people are contacting me with questions concerning the current coronavirus outbreak. As you all know, I am not a public health official, nor am I a doctor and cannot give anyone specific advice regarding “what do do.” I probably know as much...
Friday Q & A 3/13/2020
Can Unum take money out of my bank account? Not unless you give it permission to. Electronic deposits allow Unum (and other insurers) to put money in, but not take it out. Authorizations to watch are those connected with third-party SSDI Advocates such as Genex,...
Unum Denies Mental Health Claim In Violation of Multi-State Settlement Agreement
Sometimes I get the impression that some of my readers feel I am exaggerating the “bad faith” insurers engage in to create fear and hype about disability claims. While I have said over and over again my motives are to, “provide knowledge at least...
Is There Such A Thing As Privacy For Disability Insureds?
For Americans, lack of personal privacy has been going on for quite some time now. I don’t know if it’s just that people are finally waking up to what they don’t have anymore, or that the environment of disability insurance progressed along with new...
2020 Insurance Surveillance Is Worse Than Ever!
Several insureds called me this past week to fill me in on their experiences with surveillance. One gentleman described surveillance teams following his children for several days in addition to following him. His opinion was that it must be illegal for an insurance...
Attorney On Your Case?
Recently, I’ve received several calls from insureds who have already retained attorneys for their disability claims, and unfortunately I turned them dow It’s no secret I’ve traditionally written on this blog, that in my opinion, most attorneys are...
Unum – Do SSDI Nickel And Dimes Really Increase Cash Flow and Profitability Enough to Cover the Admin Cost Of Endless Chasing?
For years now Unum has been “making the market” on its own common stock by buying up Treasury shares in order to increase the market price of common shares. For those of you who are unaware, buying up Treasury shares (corporation’s own stock) reduces...
“Comorbidity” And It’s Deliberate Omission From The Claims Process
Two of the most commonly misused insurance terms are “Mortality Values” and “Comorbidity.” Actuarial “mortality values” are used in the Life insurance underwriting process where hazards and perils are charted with sex, age, gender...
Do Roundtables Still Exist? “Yes, But Oh So Quietly And Undocumented”
As I’ve written so many times, insurance companies are constantly focusing on “setting up” insureds with documentation that any prudent person could read and agree insureds should not be on claim, but working. Every day insurers are putting something...
Criteria That Must Be Met In Order To Have A Paid Claim In 2020
I know there must be a few Lindanee’s Blog readers who think, “I’ve got this covered, Linda. We don’t need any help.” And, that might very well be true. However, unless insureds are particularly skilled in managing disability claims,...
Please See The New Tab for “NCDI”
Please do not forget to periodically check out the new tab at the top of the Home Page for new NCDI information. If you have links or articles you feel would be interesting to others, please send them to me for inclusion on this page. Thank you!
Friday Q & A On Sunday
Why do we not use the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) scale anymore? GAF was removed from the DSM-5 in October, 2018 and was replaced with WHO DAS 2.0. The DSM-5 is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Psychological Disorders that replaced DSM-IV. In my...
TBI Claims – Refusals To Pay!
Although Traumatic Brain (“TBI”) impairments are quite common, disability insurers are reluctant to pay for cognitive impairments that are alleged to be “subjective” and “self-reported. TBI can result in speech, ambulatory, muscular...
