Court Rejects CIGNA LTD Termination

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Life Insurance Company of North America is a CIGNA company. In Jones v. Life Ins. Co. of N. Amer., which was decided last Friday, U.S.D.C. Judge Michael Telesca ordered CIGNA to pay the plaintiff’s long term disability (“LTD”) benefits that CIGNA terminated.

As has become customary, CIGNA terminated the LTD benefits by ignoring the medical records and reports from the treating physicians, the side effects of the plaintiff’s medications, findings and opinion of the plaintiff’s vocational expert, and decision approving the plaintiff’s Social Security Disability benefits. Instead, as usual, CIGNA relied on the opinion of its doctor, a functional capacity evaluation, and transferable skill analysis, each of which was inconsistent with the medical records.

Judge Telesca found that CIGNA arbitrarily refused to credit the plaintiff’s reliable medical evidence. To make matters even worse, Judge Telesca ruled that CIGNA “clearly” “cherry-picked selective items of submitted evidence in order to support its decision that the Plaintiff was not disabled under the Plan.”

As exposed on ABC Good Morning America, CIGNA has a history of improperly handling LTD claims. If CIGNA has denied or terminated your LTD benefits, call The Law Offices of Jeffrey Delott for a free consultation.

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