Financial Planning and Contract Negotiation for Female Physicians
In MONY Life Insurance Co. v. Perez, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a jury verdict in favor of MONY Life Insurance Co. on its unjust enrichment claim against policyholder Bernard Perez, holding that an...more
In Steigleman v. Symetra Life Ins. Co., 2023 WL 7413668 (D. Ariz. 2023), a court considered whether a package of various welfare benefit insurance policies an individual business owner arranged for herself and her employees...more
In Gorbacheva v. Abbott Laboratories Extended Disability Plan, et al., 29 U.S. App. LEXIS 36542 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 10, 2019), the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court's award of attorneys' fees to an ERISA claimant as...more
Much has been written about the Department of Labor’s final rule regarding disability benefit claims procedures (the “Final Rule”), which took effect on April 2, 2018. And by now, most employers – and all disability insurance...more
As noted in our previous blog post, The New Disability Claims Regulations: They Don’t Only Apply to Disability Plans, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued regulations that revise the ERISA claims procedure regulations for...more
A federal district court in Louisiana upheld a Texas state law prohibiting insurers from granting themselves discretion to interpret benefit plans when deciding benefit claims. These so-called “discretionary clauses” are...more
The year-end is rapidly approaching! To avoid costly penalties from inadvertent errors in the year-end rush, plan sponsors should begin talking with their service providers now about what must be done by year-end. Our first...more
As open enrollment approaches for many benefit plans, employers and plans sponsors should check to make sure their claims procedures for disability claims are consistent with regulations that become effective for plan years...more
The Employee Benefits Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor recently published final regulations governing the ERISA claims and appeals process that will apply to all claims for disability benefits filed on...more
The Ninth Circuit held that a plan administrator’s failure to render a decision on a long-term disability benefits claim within the period mandated by the plan and ERISA did not alter the standard of review that the court...more
A federal court has held that a radiologist’s state law contract claim for certain disability insurance benefits arose under a welfare benefit plan governed by ERISA and was therefore preempted by ERISA. In Hershan v. Unum...more
It is a deceptively simple statement: Governmental employee benefit plans are exempt from ERISA. 29 U.S.C. § 1003(b)(1). But what about an employee benefit plan of an entity affiliated with a governmental entity, but whose...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has affirmed an unusually large award of $3.8 million in a case involving the denial of long-term disability benefits. In Rochow v. Life Insurance Company of North America, No....more