Disability Insurance Policy Lawyers

If you have been denied benefits, either long term, short term or temporary, under a disability insurance policy, it is important that you have an experienced, committed and aggressive lawyer to represent you. Insurance companies and their lawyers are skilled at trying to exploit every possible exception, exclusion and basis to deny the payment of disability benefits. Insurance companies often rely on broadly defined "preexisting condition" exclusion provisions in disability policies to deny disability benefits. In some disability insurance policies, insurance companies have built in contractually enforceable time deadlines for making claims and filing lawsuits that can trap unwary policyholders and prevent them from recovering based on technical time deadlines.

Insurance companies, and their lawyers, often hire and rely upon doctors who conduct purported "independent medical examinations." These independent medical examinations are anything but independent, honest or fair. They are often conducted by doctors who do not practice medicine, but who work exclusively for insurance companies, for exorbitant fees, to produce alleged independent medical examinations which insurance companies use to deny disability benefits.

In addition to having a breach of contract case against an insurance company which has denied the payment of disability benefits, a person holding a disability policy (an insured) may have causes of action and legal claims for bad faith failure to pay and for violations of consumer protection laws such as the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act. Evaluating and adding bad faith claims and consumer protection claims to disability lawsuits is important for those who have been denied benefits because those claims can allow an insured to recover penalties, treble damages and attorneys' fees and expenses, in addition to benefits owed.

One strategy of insurance companies in disability cases is to make the litigation as lengthy and as protracted as possible so that more pressure is placed on the person who has been denied benefits to settle for less than what he or she is entitled to under the disability policy. This strategy is used to force a policyholder into a financial situation where he or she must settle for less than a fair amount. When we represent a client in a disability insurance case, we act aggressively to prevent the insurance company and its lawyers from delaying the case to attempt to "starve out" our client.

If you would like to speak with a Nashville disability insurance policy lawyer and Tennessee disability insurance policy lawyer about your disability benefits case, contact the law offices of Pepper & Brothers, PLLC at 615-256-4838.