The McKennon Law Group PC periodically publishes articles on its California Insurance Litigation Blog that deal with frequently asked questions in the insurance bad faith, life insurance, long term disability insurance, annuities, accidental death insurance and ERISA areas of the law.  This article in that series focuses on appealing a denial of your long term disability insurance claim for long term disability insurance benefits under ERISA.

The short answer is “Absolutely.”

If your claim for benefits under an ERISA plan is denied, you cannot immediately file a lawsuit to collect your benefits.  Instead, you are required to file at least one appeal with the very same company that denied your claim in the first place.  While the insurance company is perfectly happy to allow you to conduct the appeal without the help of an attorney, by doing so, you might be handicapping your chances of winning a lawsuit if/when the company denies your appeal.

When you appeal the denial of your claim for benefits, the insurance company NEVER TELLS YOU that you will not be allowed to use new evidence to support your claim in your lawsuit.  In most cases, you will instead be limited to the documents in the insurance company’s file, called the Administrative Record.  Thus, the worst thing you can do is simply tell the insurance company that you disagree with their decision and would like to appeal.  But if you hire an attorney who has strong experience handling ERISA matters, including litigating them, that attorney can help ensure that your file contains all of the documents and information that you will need in your lawsuit and help to ensure that you timely file your appeal (if your appeal is not filed at all or if it is not timely, you may lose your right to sue for the benefits).  An attorney can also help identify problems with the insurance company’s initial review, and make sure those problems are noted in the record for use in the litigation.  In addition, when confronted with the arguments of experienced ERISA attorneys such as McKennon Law Group PC, the insurance company or plan administrator will often reverse itself and approve the claim for benefits.

Accordingly, when appealing a claim decision under a short-term disability insurance, long-term disability insurance, life insurance or annuity plans governed by ERISA, the best thing you can do to increase your chances on appeal is to hire an experienced ERISA attorney to help you through the process.