A Letter to Cigna CEO Following Denial of Disability Benefits to a Wheel Chair Bound Woman
It is not often that we send a letter to the President / CEO of a disability insurance company, but the conduct of Life Insurance Company of North America / CIGNA by denying disability insurance benefits to our client required us to do so. We hope Cigna will respond, but despite a $77 million dollar regulatory Settlement in May 2013, Cigna continues to engage in their same unreasonable claim denials.
Below is a November 15, 2013 letter written by Gregory Dell to David Cordani, Cigna insurance company’s Chief Executive Officer and President:
Cigna Corporate Headquarters
Attention: David Cordani (CEO)
900 Cottage Grove Road
Bloomfield, CT 06002
RE: Life Insurance Company of North America (Cigna) Long Term Disability Denial
Dear Mr. Cordani
I have reason to believe that you are the CEO of Cigna. I know you are a very busy person and probably have no interaction with your long term disability claims division. The LTD division at CIGNA is in desperate need of your guidance. Despite recent penalties and fines from the Department of Insurance in multiple states, your company continues to operate in an unreasonable manner. I have attached for your review a recent long term disability appeal that we submitted on behalf of our client so that you can have first-hand knowledge of the conduct your company engages in. Our client is a 5’4 270 pound 58 year old woman that is wheelchair bound and has been taking morphine and oxycontin since her date of disability in June 2009. Five employees at Cigna reviewed her file and determined that after 4.5 years of disability she now has the ability to work in a sales position earning over $70,000 annually. It defies common sense that five employees of your company could truly believe that a person in a wheel chair taking numerous narcotics actually has the ability to work. Would you possibly employ someone while they were prescribed and taking narcotics such as morphine and Oxycontin? Obviously you would not. I advise you of this particular claim so that it does not come as a surprise to you when it is a national news story. I also hope that you can do something to better train your employees so that unreasonable claim denials such as this case do not take place. I am assuming you are aware of the troubles your disability insurance division is having following the $77 million 2013 Regulatory Settlement Agreement that was entered into with the State Departments of Insurance for California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Please contact the undersigned to discuss the hideous conduct and outrageous denial of benefits that took place on this disability claim.
Yours truly,
Gregory M. Dell
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