Life Insurance Attorney
Cerebral hemorrhage, bleeding in the brain, stroke:
Matthews v. Sun Life Assurance Company
345 Fed. Appx. 161 (6th Cir. 2009) (Unpublished).
Our Disability Insurance lawyers helped our client obtain life insurance benefits under a policy that allowed him to keep his life insurance if he was disabled when he stopped working. Our client became disabled due to a cerebral hemorrhage, or a stroke, that caused him to have to stop working. After a few months he tried to come back to work but was unable to ever really perform his job again, and he stopped working entirely after a few months. His employer offered life insurance, that he could keep if he proved he was disabled when he stopped working.
When he first went off work, the employer provided life insurance under a Jefferson Pilot policy, but while he was off work the employer switched to a policy offered by Sun Life. After he tried to work a few months and failed, he applied to keep his life insurance because he was disabled. Jefferson Pilot denied the coverage saying that he had come back to work after their policy ended, and therefore did not remain “totally disabled.” However Sun Life also denied coverage saying that when he came back to work he never really was able to do the job, so he was not “actively at work” enough to be covered by their policy.
After we sued, the court ultimately held that because our client never really did return to work, he was not “gainfully employed” enough to not be “totally disabled.” Unfortunately, by that time, he had passed away, but we were able to obtain the life insurance benefits for his widow though our success in this case.
