New York Life cares more about their shareholds than you

I wrote previously about my recent issues with New York Life. In that prior post, I stated my belief that New York Life was in the process of trying to deny my ongoing STD Claim prior to having to roll it over to LTD. As of the time of this writing, New York Life lists my claim as “ACTIVE” but “Medically Approved Through August 10, 2018. It has stalled at that Medical Approval Date for an entire month. As a result, the ACH Deposit from my former employer that I received today was not 60% of my former earnings, but 30%. That this would happen isn’t something New York Life can reasonably feign ignorance of. It should fall under the heading of reasonable knowledge, because they work with my former employer’s HR and Payroll departments. I was formerly impressed with New York Life. I would submit my Medical Request Form to them via e-mail after each doctor visit. My Claims Rep would call me that day or the day after to acknowledge receipt and state that my claim would be medically approved until the 10th of the following month. When my former employer was paying them to manage claims AND paying the benefit to claimants like me, New York Life was still turning a profit from the claims generated through my employer because they paid premiums for thousands of employees, with only a fraction of them receiving benefit. Now, however, my employer has switched STD/LTD companies, so they are NOT paying anything to New York Life and my case should roll over to LTD on the 10th of September. In short, New York Life has all of the motive needed to try to deny my ongoing STD claim prior to it rolling over to LTD. And I believe that is exactly what they are doing. The only motive they have for taking 30 days to determine whether or not my STD claim should be medically approved through Sept. 10 is a tactical one. I think they hope that by cutting my pay to 30% of former earning just once, I will be so demoralized that I will try to obtain any job that I can to keep from financially drowning. In other words, I think it is a tactical move that is part of a broader strategic mission of keeping themselves off the proverbial hook for having to pay me benefits when my former employer is no longer paying them. If you are seriously incapacitated and seriously can’t work and you’re seriously relying on New York Life to pay benefits you are owed, you seriously need to retain counsel to deal with them. If I had it to do all over again , I would have retained counsel from the beginning. While I believe that New York Life is hoping that 30% of my former earnings will motivate me in to trying to work, the reality is that if I COULD work, I would be working. Since I am incapacitated, I couldn’t play the role New York Life seems to expect me to, even if I wanted to. They are a business with a primary mission to be profitable and maximize value for shareholders. I understand their motivation for wanting to to bolster their bottom line and they certainly should exercise diligence in insuring that they aren’t being defrauded by false claims. While that is true, it seems to me that they waste a lot of man-hours attempting to invalidate genuine bona-fide claims, and the only logical reason for them to do so is that they’ve done it before and have gotten away with it, more often than not. Do yourself a favor: If you have to file an STD/LTD claim with New York Life, understand that they care more about their shareholders than you. You care about you more than they do. If you care about you, learn from my mistake and don’t make it yourself. Lawyer up immediately, at the time of filing. Don’t wait until there is a problem. Lawyer up to mitigate the risk that there will be problems.