Long Term Disability Insurance Companies

Most people do not choose their long term disability insurance company. It came with the job. You may never have thought about which company it was until the day it denied your claim, and by then the name on the letterhead has become the most important company in your life.

​

Keep reading to learn why the identity of your insurance company matters more than most claimants expect, what these carriers have in common when they deny claims, and where to find detailed guidance on the specific company handling your claim. A full list of insurers, with a link to the page for each one, appears at the bottom of this page.

​

The Maddox Firm handles long term disability claims, appeals, and litigation against every carrier listed here.

​

Why Does It Matter Which Insurance Company You Have?

​

The company that denied your claim may not be the company on your policy. This is the one that surprises people. Group disability blocks get bought, sold, renamed, and reinsured, and the paperwork does not always keep up. Your certificate might say Liberty Life Assurance Company of Boston while your denial letter says Lincoln. It might say Aetna while your letters come from The Hartford. It might say Cigna while your correspondence says New York Life. None of that means anything has gone wrong. It does mean that if you are preparing an appeal, and certainly if you are preparing a lawsuit, you need to know which entity is actually responsible before you file anything.

​

Some carriers have a regulatory history and most do not. Two of the companies on this list entered settlements with state insurance regulators over how they handled disability claims, and those settlements required specific changes to claim practices. Most of the others have no such history that we have been able to find in public records, and we say so on their pages rather than implying otherwise. Where a settlement exists, the standards the company agreed to adopt are a useful measuring stick for what happened in your own claim.

​

What Do These Insurance Companies Have in Common?

 

More than you might think. Whatever name is on your denial letter, the same handful of reasons account for most terminations and denials.

 

• Lack of objective evidence. The records are said not to contain objective findings supporting the restrictions your doctor describes. This falls hardest on conditions that do not appear on imaging, including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, migraine, long COVID, autoimmune conditions, and mental health conditions.

•  

• A file review by a physician who never examined you. A reviewer reads your file, sometimes an incomplete one, and concludes the records do not support the limitations you reported. Whether that reviewer received your complete records, and whether anyone tried to obtain the ones that were missing, is one of the first things worth establishing.

• ​

• The change in definition at 24 months. Most group policies pay for the first two years if you cannot perform your own occupation, then switch to a harder standard asking whether you can perform any occupation. A large share of terminations happen at that transition, not because anything about your health changed, but because the standard did.

• ​

• Limitations on mental health and self-reported conditions. Most policies cap benefits at 24 months for these conditions. Where a claim involves both physical and psychiatric conditions, how the insurer characterizes it does most of the work.

• ​

• Surveillance and social media review. Brief footage of ordinary activity gets used to argue you are more capable than you reported, even where it says nothing about whether you could sustain that activity across a full workday.

• ​

• Gaps in treatment. Reduced care is read as improvement. Claimants often cut back because treatment stopped helping, because of cost, or because of side effects, and the record should say so rather than leaving the insurer to assume the least favorable explanation.

​

The other thing nearly all of these claims have in common is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"). If your coverage came through your employer, ERISA almost certainly governs it, which means you generally have at least 180 days to appeal, the appeal is usually your last chance to put evidence in front of a court, and you generally cannot recover bad faith or punitive damages. 

​

What Should You Do After a Denial, Whatever the Carrier?

 

Request your complete claim file in writing. Under the ERISA claims regulation you are entitled to it free of charge. It shows what the reviewing physician actually received, whether anyone contacted your doctors, what vocational analysis was done, and what internal guidelines were applied.

Find both of your deadlines. One is the deadline to appeal, stated in your denial letter. The other is the deadline to file a lawsuit, stated in your policy. They are different, the second is often shorter than people expect, and in many policies it starts running long before your final denial arrives.

Read the policy, not the summary. The definition of disability, the limitations, the offsets, and any language granting the insurer discretion are what your case will turn on.

​

Start early. Our guide on drafting an effective appeal letter sets out the sequence, and why your appeal is your only chance to build the record explains why the evidence you submit during the appeal is usually all a court will ever see.

​

Frequently Asked Questions About Long Term Disability Insurance Companies

​

How do I find out which company actually insures my disability policy?

 

Read the first page of your certificate of coverage and the letterhead on your denial letter. The certificate names the insurer that issued the policy. If the two documents name different companies, that usually reflects a sale or reinsurance transaction, and you should obtain the plan documents before filing an appeal or a lawsuit.

​

​

Why does my denial letter come from a different company than my policy?

 

Group disability blocks are regularly sold, renamed, or reinsured. Liberty Life policies are now Lincoln obligations, Aetna's group disability book is administered by The Hartford, and Cigna's group business was sold to New York Life. Your policy terms do not change when this happens, but the correct party to your claim may.

​

​

Which long term disability insurance companies have been investigated by regulators?

 

Two carriers on this list entered settlements with state insurance regulators over disability claim handling. Unum entered a multistate settlement in 2004 that required reassessment of roughly 215,000 claims. Cigna's disability insurers entered a settlement in 2013 with five states requiring reassessment of certain denials and changes to claim practices.

​

​

Do all disability insurers deny claims for the same reasons?

 

Largely yes. Lack of objective evidence, file reviews by physicians who never examined the claimant, the change in definition at 24 months, mental health limitations, surveillance, and gaps in treatment account for most denials across every carrier. What differs is which reasons a given company leans on and what its policy language allows.

​

​

Does it matter which insurance company I have when I appeal?

​

Yes. Policy language differs, some carriers have regulatory history you can measure your claim against, some have federal court decisions interpreting their specific wording, and some require you to identify the right corporate entity before filing. The general appeal strategy is the same, but the arguments available to you are not.

​

​

What if my insurance company is not listed on this page?

 

We handle claims against carriers not listed here. The pages below cover the companies we see most often, but the law, the deadlines, and the evidence that wins an appeal are the same regardless of which company issued your policy. Contact us and we will tell you what applies to your claim.

​

​

Is my disability claim governed by ERISA?

 

If your coverage came through your employer, almost certainly yes. If you bought an individual policy yourself, outside of work, it is generally not governed by ERISA, which changes your deadlines, your remedies, and the court you end up in. Employer-offered individual policies fall somewhere in between and depend on your employer's involvement.

​

​

How long do I have to appeal a long term disability denial?

 

Under ERISA you generally have at least 180 days from the adverse determination, and your denial letter states the deadline that applies to you. Your policy separately sets a deadline for filing a lawsuit, which is a different clock and is often already running by the time your appeal is decided.

​

How Can The Maddox Firm Help With Your Long Term Disability Claim?

 

The Maddox Firm handles long term disability claims, appeals, and litigation against all of the insurers on this page and many others. We treat your appeal as the most important stage of your case, because in most long term disability claims it is.

​

Here's how The Maddox Firm can help you with your long term disability claim:

​

• We Identify Which Company Is Actually Responsible: Before anything is filed, we establish from your certificate and plan documents which entity insures your claim, which is not always the company whose name is on your denial letter.

• We Obtain and Review Your Entire Claim File: We request your complete file and review all of it, including internal claim notes, the reports and credentials of the physicians the insurer used, vocational analyses, and any surveillance.

• We Find Every Deadline That Applies to You: The deadline to appeal and the deadline to file suit are different clocks, and the second one is frequently already running by the time a claimant calls us.

• We Read the Policy Language That Decides Your Case: The definition of disability, the limitations, the offsets, and any grant of discretion determine what your appeal has to prove and how much deference a court will give the denial.

• We Identify What Your Record Is Missing: We compare the evidence in your file against what your policy requires you to prove, then determine what medical, functional, and vocational evidence must be added before your appeal window closes.

• We Work With Your Doctors and Retained Experts: We coordinate with your treating physicians for detailed reports on your restrictions and limitations, and where appropriate arrange functional capacity evaluations and vocational assessments.

• We Handle Appeals and Litigation: If your appeal is denied, we are prepared to litigate in federal court on the record we built.

 

A long term disability claim can be a complicated process, and an incomplete record is a problem that usually cannot be fixed later. If you need help during the claims process, with appealing a claim denial, or with litigating a final adverse long term disability decision, The Maddox Firm can help. The experienced team at The Maddox Firm will examine your insurance policy, correspondence from your insurance company, medical records, and any other relevant documentation in order to give you personalized guidance on how we can help you win your long term disability claim. Our New Jersey and New York long term disability attorneys help clients nationwide.

​

Contact us to help you file your claim, appeal, or litigation the right way.