A virtually insurmountable concrete wall was once an apt analogy for the effect of discretionary clauses in ERISA Plans on claimants attempting to challenge a plan administrator’s unreasonable interpretation of policy terms. A valid discretionary clause gave insurance companies power to construe the terms of ERISA- governed group insurance policies based on their own interpretation, which could only be overturned by courts if it were “illogical, implausible or without support in inferences drawn from the facts in the record.” Salomaa v. Honda Long Term Disability Plan, 642 F.3d 666 (2011). In order to counteract the discretion these clauses provided to plan administrators/insurers, California enacted Insurance Code section 10110.6, which placed a ban on such discretionary clauses. After the enactment of this new statute, questions regarding how courts would interpret and enforce it lingered. However, recent decisions in California strongly suggests that courts will give full force to the California statute and apply de novo review of claim denials rather than the abuse of discretion standard to claims denied on or after January 1, 2012.
California Insurance Code section 10110.6 provides in pertinent part:
(a) If a policy, contract, certificate, or agreement offered, issued, delivered, or renewed, whether or not in California, that provides or funds life insurance or disability insurance coverage for any California resident contains a provision that reserves discretionary authority to the insurer, or an agent of the insurer, to determine eligibility for benefits or coverage, to interpret the terms of the policy, contract, certificate, or agreement, or to provide standards of interpretation or review that are inconsistent with the laws of this state, that provision is void and unenforceable.
(b) For purposes of this section, “renewed” means continued in force on or after the policy’s anniversary date.
The statute applies to life and disability insurance policies issued, delivered or renewed on or after January 1, 2012 in California. One of the key questions that remained after the enactment of the statute was whether, and under what circumstances, it applies to policies that were in effect prior to the enactment of the statute. This question appears to have been answered in two recent Northern District of California decisions finding that the statute applies even to policies that were issued or had an effective date prior to January 1, 2012 where it is renewed annually and the relevant claim is denied after January 1, 2012.
In Polnicky v. Liberty Life Assurance Company of Boston, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163915 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 18, 2013) the court interpreted section 10110.6 and concluded that the policy which controlled in that case was the one in effect at the time the claim was denied, after the enactment of section 10110.6, even though the policy had an effective date of January 1, 2010 (before the statute became effective). In Polnicky, the relevant policy was renewed annually on January 1. In March 2010, the plaintiff submitted a claim for short-term disability benefits under his ERISA-governed disability policy, which was denied in June 1, 2012. The plaintiff’s subsequent appeal was then denied in February 2013. The insurer argued that the abuse of discretion standard should be applied given the express grant of discretion authority in the policy. On the other hand, the plaintiff argued that any grant of discretion was void and unenforceable under section 10110.6. The court ultimately held that, because the policy was renewed and continued after its January 1, 2012 anniversary date, any provision in the policy attempting to confer discretionary authority was rendered void and unenforceable.
Recently, in Gonda v. Permanente Med. Group, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5981, 2014 WL 186354 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 16, 2014), the court reaffirmed its prior holding in Polnicky and held that section 10110.6 made void any grant of discretionary authority in ERISA plans even if the plan was issued prior to when the statute came into effect because the policy in question renewed annually and became effective January 1, 2013, prior the final denial of the plaintiff’s claim in May 2013.
As Polnicky and Gonda demonstrate, courts will likely find discretionary clauses invalid and void where the policy is renewed after January 1, 2010, even if it became effective prior to the enact of section 10110.6.
