How Frank N. Darras and His Firms Have Recovered Nearly $1 Billion in Denied Insurance Benefits
During the last 30 years, Frank N. Darras has earned the reputation of America’s top-rated individual and group long-term disability lawyer. Mr. Darras and his firms have recovered almost $1 billion in wrongfully delayed and denied insurance benefits.
Darras has done it with a combination of unique legal knowledge, litigation and claim experience, and care and compassion for his disabled clients.
Focusing on Complicated Disability Law
Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1971 (ERISA) to protect certain retirement, health, and disability benefits plans administered by private corporations.
Don’t be fooled by the name, however. ERISA doesn’t just cover retirement policies. It also generally governs your employer or group sponsored long-term disability and life insurance benefits.
ERISA is actually a series of federal laws originally designed to protect group or employer-provided insurance beneficiaries by requiring private insurance companies to clearly disclose the terms of their benefits plans and financial dealings. ERISA further requires insurance administrators adhere to certain standards of conduct regarding how to manage and distribute group disability insurance benefits.
Congress initially passed ERISA out of concern that those tasked with administering private pension plans mismanaged, drained, and embezzled from those plans. Since then, it’s become an ever more complicated law that strips away many legal rights and consumer protections that beneficiaries of long-term individual disability insurance enjoy.
When Should You Call a Disability Attorney?
If you are experiencing a disabling sickness or injury that you believe may entitle you to individual or group long-term disability insurance benefits, you may wonder whether you actually need to consult with an attorney. After all, individual and group long-term disability insurers often present themselves as “on your side” and “easy to work with” when it comes to their marketing materials and communications with the people they insure.
In reality, individual and group disability insurance companies are for-profit businesses, and they make a profit by paying out less than they collect in premiums. Individual and group disability insurance companies regularly do everything they can to avoid paying out on valid claims, and when they do pay out, they fight hard to minimize the benefits they provide.
Consult an individual disability attorney or group ERISA lawyer at DarrasLaw as soon as you realize you need to file a disability insurance claim. The earlier you call us, the more we can help you.
How a Top-Rated Individual Disability Attorney or ERISA Lawyer Can Protect Your Rights
If your group long-term group disability benefits were wrongfully delayed or denied, you may have a federal cause of action under ERISA.
You do not, however, have the same legal rights under ERISA as individual disability insurance policyholders—that is, claimants who buy private disability insurance plans from agents or brokers.
If you have individual disability insurance, in most cases you may generally take a wrongful denial straight to court. There, you may submit evidence, use discovery to get insurance company documents, call witnesses on your behalf, cross-examine the insurance company’s witnesses, and try your case before a jury. You may also seek emotional distress and punishment damages along with attorney fees with your trial before a jury.
ERISA preempts many of these legal rights and consumer protections—something that many attorneys don’t understand.
An award-winning ERISA attorney or disability lawyer at DarrasLaw knows how to fight for your group disability insurance benefits, even under ERISA’s many complicated restrictions. The experienced long-term disability lawyers and ERISA attorneys at DarrasLaw understand the complicated federal scheme governing your group disability insurance company. We know how to overcome a bad-faith delay or wrongful denial of group disability insurance benefits.
Recovering Group Disability Benefits After a Wrongful Delay or Denial
ERISA gives beneficiaries the right to sue their group disability insurance plans for an arbitrary and capricious delay or de novo denial of long-term disability insurance benefits.
After a wrongful delay or denial of your valid group disability insurance claim, however, you may only file a federal ERISA lawsuit after a timely administrative appeal with your group long-term group disability insurer. If you face another wrongful denial of group disability insurance benefits after your administrative appeal, then you can file ERISA litigation in federal court.
The catch is that, if you’re claiming a bad-faith delay or denial of group disability insurance benefits, your federal ERISA lawsuit is limited to the evidence you submitted during your administrative appeal and the underlying claim.
To preserve the viability of your federal ERISA lawsuit, you need to timely submit the most complete, legally sufficient, exhaustive administrative disability appeal possible. Most attorneys don’t deal with ERISA nearly enough to know how to handle these complex cases. They can often commit malpractice and make many fatal claim mistakes as a result.
For more than 30 years, Frank N. Darras has handled only individual and group disability insurance cases. During that time, the team of ERISA lawyers and disability attorneys he managed has developed the litigation and claim experience to know what goes into a successful administrative appeal and ERISA federal lawsuit. Call us—we are happy to assist you with your disability insurance claim and help you answer the confusing questions on your claim application.
A Different Approach to Long-Term Individual and Group Disability Law
Our founding partner, Frank N. Darras, comes from a working-class background. He believes that everybody, regardless of economic status, should have access to a top-rated individual disability attorney or ERISA disability lawyer.
Many other law firms will only take disability insurance cases—especially complicated group ERISA cases—when they can bill their clients by the hour. Clients of those firms can quickly rack up large legal bills while they hopelessly fall behind financially from medical expenses and the loss of their ability to work.
At DarrasLaw, however, we provide free disability insurance policy analysis and free insurance case consultations. Moreover, the top-rated individual disability lawyers and ERISA attorneys at DarrasLaw work on contingency. That means you pay nothing unless we prevail. We take the financial burden of the legal claim off of you and only collect a percentage of any settlement or judgment plus costs that we win for you.
We offer free help and guidance because we are the top firm in America, taking pride in helping the disabled find justice.
Contact Our Award-Winning Individual and Group Disability Insurance Litigation Firm at DarrasLaw
If you were wrongfully delayed or denied individual or group disability insurance benefits, call DarrasLaw today to schedule your free insurance case analysis. Our top-rated ERISA attorneys and individual disability lawyers will review the facts of your disability case for free. Contact us today at 800-898-7299 or online.