Life Insurance Claim was Denied Because of Depression
For a life insurance claim to be denied because of depression raises several red flags for our life insurance claim experts. Depression is a condition that can be very brief depending on life circumstances. It can be a condition that exists and treated by a mental health practitioner, but the doctor might not want to put a label on the patient and therefore they won’t tell the patient, ‘you are in a state of depression’. It can be also be a state of being that a person manages without it preventing normal daily functioning.
For these reasons and many more we don’t believe a life insurance claim should be denied because of depression. Just because a claim examiner sees the term Major Depressive Disorder in a medical record means nothing unless a full and thorough evaluation was done and the insured’s ability to function was severely impacted.
If you have a life insurance claim that was denied because of Depression contact us to get it paid.
1-888-428-4868
Through our efforts we’ve gotten over $250 million paid-out to our clients from denied life insurance claims. All denied claims necessitate a full investigation of what happened when the policy was issued in addition to how the claim was handled. It can’t be overstated that the actions of the life insurer before the policy was issued and during the underwriting period are extremely important when a life insurance claim was denied because of depression.
Steve Burgess explains how insurers treat Mental Illness for life insurance policies in online publication The Mighty.
Life Insurance Claims and Depression
Many people don’t know that depression is rarely communicated as a formal diagnosis to a patient. Instead, a therapist will focus on positives and refrain from labeling a patient. It’s certainly possible that someone can be treated for the symptoms of depression without being labeled as ‘depressed’. This raises a host of questions when a life insurance claim was denied because of depression because you cannot be expected to know more than what your medical treater tells you.
Treatments for depression take many forms. The pharmacological treatments vary depending on the doctor issuing the prescription and, as is well known, medications effect people differently. In the context of life insurance claims, when depression is being treated with medications, it’s not enough for the insurance claim examiner to only focus on a diagnosis of depression. To fairly evaluate such a claim the examiner has to look at the medication prescribed, the persons’ complete medical history, their body mass index and their cognitive capabilities.
There are many different types of depression including; major depression, persistent depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, seasonal affective disorder, psychotic depression, and situational depression, just to name a few. Their relevance to life insurance mortality risk is an open and on-going debate. Insurers typical assign categories of severity to each of these and then rate each category for it’s potential mortality risk. We know how they do this and how they use this method. We can overcome many denied claims when the issue is mental heath and depression.
Accidental Death Claims and Depression
For accidental death policies the pharmaceutical treatments for depression can be the cause of death themselves, not the depression. (See cases of drug overdose.)
If your life insurance claim was denied because of depression contact us now.
Other mental illnesses, like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, are sometimes misdiagnosed as Depression when, in fact, other such conditions have their own identifiable causes, are diagnosed differently and their treatments employ different therapies. Depression, whether mild, moderate or severe, is a unique condition and not all life insurance companies view it the same way. So, if a death claim is denied due to a person’s history of depression that denial needs to be scrutinized very carefully by someone who knows the industry practices and is not looking for a way to deny your claim.
Many factors are important in determining if a life insurance claim should be denied or approved when there are questions about depression. For example, whether the condition was diagnosed, was the insured using a prescribed medication, was the depression categorized, how long had the condition been present. Each of these are relevant and may not have been considered before the claim was denied. We specialize in getting difficult death claims paid. You likely need a specialist to get your claim paid if it’s been denied because of depression.
The Center for Life Insurance Disputes represents beneficiaries of life insurance claims. If your claim has been denied, we are the experts who can help you get your money. Our fees are reasonable and our success is unmatched. We accept clients from all US states. We offer a free consultation in order to determine the best way to get your claim paid. We’re experts at getting denied life insurance claims paid.
The Center for Life Insurance Disputes
1-888-428-4868
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