Tennessee Disability and Life Insurance Blog
For claimants, it is not easy to challenge an insurer’s denial of long-term disability benefits in court, particularly in an ERISA case. Courts review the insurer’s or administrator’s decision under an “arbitrary and capricious” standard meaning that they will uphold the decision as long as it was the result of a “deliberate, principled reasoning process.” To put it simply, a court will uphold a decision to deny long-term disability benefits even if it disagrees with it, so long as the insurer can point to some facts justifying the denial.
Because no two disability cases are alike, courts have not, and cannot, set out clear rules on what constitutes an arbitrary and capricious denial of benefits. However, a recent decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (the circuit that includes all the federal courts in Tennessee) provides important guidance on when an insurer’s disability determination, under the arbitrary and capricious standard, will be reversed. Continue reading