If you have a disability insurance policy through Reassure America, you may believe that you will be protected if you are ever disabled and unable to return to work. Many valid disability claims that are filed with Reassure America are denied, however. If you receive a denial of your claim, the experienced attorneys at Osterhout Berger Daley may be able to help.
Reassure America Life Insurance Company was acquired by Jackson National Life Insurance Company in 2012. Jackson is headquartered in Lansing, Michigan and was founded in 1961. It has 4,800,000 employees and has assets totaling around $219 billion. Reassure sold life insurance and disability insurance policies. After its acquisition by and merger with Jackson, Jackson took over the management role for Reassure’s policies. Policyholders were notified in 2013 about the change in ownership of the company.
Reassure America offered both short-term and long-term disability policies. The short-term policies offer coverage when the claimants are temporarily disabled and unable to work for a short duration following an elimination period. The duration will depend on the terms of your policy. Some people also have long-term disability insurance through Reassure Life. This type of insurance pays benefits for a longer period, ranging from several years or up to age 65, depending on your policy’s terms.
While Reassure America no longer exists as its own entity, Jackson National Life Insurance still allows existing policies to be claimed. If you’re needing to collect benefits on your Reassure America short-term disability insurance, you’re going to want to familiarize yourself with your policy again. Understand how much of your income you’ll be receiving under this policy and for how long. Make sure to pay attention to the elimination period that you’ll have to go through before you can even begin collecting your benefits. Lastly, make sure that you understand what illnesses and injuries are excluded as disabilities under your policy. Some insurance companies won’t cover certain illnesses or injuries because they consider them to be pre-existing. If you try to file a claim for a condition that Reassure America excludes as a disability, you won’t be able to claim benefits under this policy. Be sure to read your policy carefully before moving forward with filing a claim. This will help your chances with getting your claim approved if you understand everything you’re entitled to under your short-term policy.
Long-term disability functions the same way that short-term disability insurance does. The biggest differences are the longer durations for the elimination period and the benefits, and the percentage of your income that’s given to you as your benefit. If you happened to get the short-term disability policy in addition to the long-term disability policy, you may be able to go through the elimination period for the long-term disability policy while you collect benefits from your short-term disability policy. Once again, be sure to read your policy carefully to understand everything you’re entitled to under this plan.
The process to submit a disability claim on a Reassure America disability policy is not going to be easy. The company that bought Reassure America is not handling the claims directly, according to its website. The best decision you can make is to contact an experienced disability lawyer to help you with submitting your claim. Holding a policy from a company that no longer exists makes it difficult to submit a claim.
According to Jackson National Life Insurance’s website, you should have received a letter informing you to contact a specific service provider when you have questions or need to file a claim on your policy. The letter should have the name of the service provider, its phone number, and its address. You’ll need to contact this service provider when you’re ready to submit a claim.
The service provider should be able to send you the necessary forms you’ll need in order to submit your claim. There should be three sections that need to be filled out completely plus an authorization form that you need to sign. The three sections will require your statement, your employer’s statement, and your physician’s statement of the disability. You may also be required to provide additional information such as proof of income that you’ll need to attach to the form when you send it back to the service provider. Make sure that you, your employer, and your physician fill out each section completely and accurately. Any incomplete information can cause your claim to be delayed or denied.
If you haven’t received an update on the status of your claim in over ten days, it’s safe to assume that your claim is being delayed. The first thing you’ll want to so is contact your service provider to get an update. If you feel like they’re not providing any useful information and are asking that you provide them more information, you may need to contact an experienced disability lawyer to help move your claim along. There have been times when insurance companies and service providers use questionable tactics to delay claims so that they can delay having to pay benefits. Don’t let this happen to you. Contact one of our experienced disability lawyers to help with your claim.
If the service provider decides to deny your claim for benefits under your Reassure America disability insurance policy, you have a right to appeal the company’s decision. It will notify you by mail of its decision to deny your claim and explain its reasoning. Your letter will also tell you the process that you must follow to appeal the denial. It is important that you note the deadline for appealing your denial. If you miss the deadline, you will be barred from trying to recover your disability policy benefits in the future. You must also go through the company’s internal appeals process before you can file a lawsuit against Jackson National Life Insurance or the service provider. The first thing you should do after you receive a denial notice is to contact the service provider and ask for your claim file. They must provide you with a copy upon your request. Having this information will help you if you need to file a lawsuit and appeal the denial in court. The next thing you’ll want to do is contact a disability lawyer. Our experienced disability lawyers at Osterhout Berger Daley will schedule an appointment to provide you with a free consultation to go over your case.
When you’re ready to meet with your lawyer, bring your file and your notice into the office of Osterhout Berger Daley. One of our experienced disability lawyers will review your documents and explain what approach to take with your appeal. He or she may want you to help build the evidence for your appeal by attending additional appointments, undergoing tests and securing statements from your treating professionals. This evidence will then be added to your file at the company so that it contains more evidence that supports the basis of your disability claim. It is often possible for our attorneys to win their clients’ claims when they are still going through the internal appeals process at Jackson National. If the in-house appeals are exhausted, the attorneys may then file a lawsuit against the company in court. Having strong evidence of the validity of your disability claim in your file may make the company much more likely to decide to grant your appeal and pay your benefits rather than going through the court process.
Throughout your claim, make certain to be honest about the symptoms that you experience and how they affect you. Don’t give in to the temptation to exaggerate your symptoms. If you do, you risk being accused of malingering, making it nearly impossible to prove that you are truly disabled. To learn more about your rights, schedule an appointment with the experienced lawyers at Osterhout Berger Daley today.
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