Why CNA Denies Long-Term Disability Claims And How to Avoid Them
For a professional, a career is more than just a source of income. It is the culmination of years of advanced education, specialized training, and intense personal dedication. Whether you are a corporate executive, a physician, an attorney, or a senior consultant, you rely on your cognitive abilities and physical health to perform high-stakes work.
When a severe illness or injury interrupts your ability to work, long-term disability insurance is supposed to be your safety net. Many employers provide these policies through major insurance carriers like CNA Financial Corporation.
Receiving a denied claim letter from CNA can be deeply disorienting. Suddenly, you are facing a medical crisis and a financial crisis at the same time. The insurance company you trusted to protect your livelihood has closed its doors on you.
You do not have to accept a denial as the final word. Navigating an insurance appeal requires specialized knowledge and a deeply strategic approach. At the law office of Jonathan M. Feigenbaum, Esquire, we help professionals nationwide challenge insurance companies and obtain the benefits they earned.
CNA is a leading company in the commercial insurance market. Like any large insurance company, it operates as a for-profit entity. This means its claims adjusters strictly scrutinize applications to minimize payouts and protect the company’s bottom line.
Denials rarely happen because a claimant is lying about an illness. Instead, they occur because the submitted evidence does not meet the strict, technical definitions outlined in the policy. CNA commonly relies on specific tactics to deny long-term disability claims to professionals.
Paper Only Medical Reviews
CNA frequently hires its doctors to review medical files. These physicians rarely examine you in person. Instead, they read through your records and look for reasons to claim your condition is not severe enough to prevent you from working. They may downplay the opinions of your treating doctors or claim that your symptoms are subjective.
Mischaracterizing Your Job Duties
For professionals, job descriptions are often complex. CNA may look only at the basic titles or generic occupational definitions rather than the actual, high-stress demands of your daily routine. If they classify your executive role as purely sedentary, they might argue that you can still sit at a desk and answer emails, ignoring the cognitive demands, travel requirements, or decision-making pressure your actual job entails.
Surveillance and Social Media Monitoring
Insurance companies routinely hire private investigators to watch claimants. They might video you picking up groceries or walking to your mailbox. They will also monitor your public social media profiles for pictures of you smiling at a family dinner. CNA can use these isolated moments out of context to argue that you are healthy enough to return to work.
Demanding Objective Proof for Subjective Conditions
Conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, severe depression, or migraines are incredibly debilitating but difficult to quantify on a standard X-ray or blood test. CNA often denies these claims by stating there is a lack of objective medical evidence to support the restriction.
The Legal Framework: Understanding ERISA
If you received your CNA coverage through an employer-sponsored benefit plan, your claim is governed by a federal law known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, universally referred to as ERISA.
ERISA heavily favors the insurance company. It strips away many of the consumer protections you enjoy under state laws. For example, under ERISA, you generally cannot sue the insurance company for bad faith, nor can you recover damages for emotional distress.
Crucially, ERISA dictates that you must go through an internal administrative appeal process with CNA before you are allowed to file a lawsuit in federal court. This administrative appeal is the most critical stage of your entire case.
Under ERISA rules, the administrative appeal is your final opportunity to place evidence into your claim file. If your appeal is denied and you eventually have to sue CNA in court, the federal judge will look only at the evidence that was already inside the file during the appeal. You cannot introduce new doctor reports, new witness testimonies, or new medical tests at trial. If it is not in the record, it does not exist to the judge. This is why ERISA attorney Jonathan M. Feigenbaum treats the appeal stage as if we are preparing for a federal court trial from day one.
How Attorney Jonathan M. Feigenbaum Helps
Attempting to handle a CNA appeal on your own is incredibly risky. Writing a letter simply stating that you are sick and that your doctor agrees will not suffice. With decades of dedicated experience in disability, ERISA, and insurance law, our firm understands the exact strategy required to build an airtight administrative record that stands up to federal scrutiny.
Comprehensive Policy Analysis
Every disability policy is different. We thoroughly analyze your specific CNA plan to identify key definitions. We look closely at how the policy defines total disability. Does it require you to be unable to perform your own occupation or any occupation? Are there mental illness limitations that cap benefits at two years? Identifying these parameters allows us to tailor your medical evidence to match the exact terms of the contract.
Gathering Bulletproof Medical Evidence
We look beyond standard medical charts. Hospital notes are often written quickly and fail to explain exactly how your symptoms translate to workplace limitations. Our firm collaborates closely with your treating physicians to obtain specialized medical source statements. These statements explicitly detail your physical and cognitive restrictions, such as how long you can sit, your capacity for sustained concentration, and your need for unpredictable breaks.
Vocational Expert Reports
To counter the CNA claim that your job is easy, we can bring in an independent vocational expert. This professional analyzes the true material duties of your specific career and compares them to your medical restrictions. The vocational expert can write a formal report concluding that your illness completely precludes you from performing your professional role or any other comparable occupation in the economy.
Arranging Specialized Testing
If CNA claims your condition lacks objective evidence, we know how to arrange for objective testing that holds up in court. For physical limitations, this might include a functional capacity evaluation, which measures your physical endurance over several hours. For cognitive deficits caused by long COVID, traumatic brain injury, or neurological diseases, a neuropsychological evaluation can objectively measure memory, attention, and executive functioning.
Neutralizing Surveillance Evidence
If CNA uses surveillance footage against you, we know how to neutralize it. We can present the footage to your treating physician, who can explain to the record that a twenty-minute outing to the grocery store does not mean you can sustain an eight-hour workday, five days a week.
Moving Forward Post Denial: The Timeline Matters
When CNA sends a denial letter, a countdown clock begins. Under ERISA, you typically have exactly 180 days from the date you receive the denial letter to file your formal administrative appeal.
While 180 days might sound like a long time, it moves incredibly fast when you are trying to schedule appointments with specialists, wait for medical records, and coordinate expert reports. Missing this deadline means you lose your right to collect your benefits permanently.
The moment you receive a denial letter, you should reach out for legal guidance. Our office will immediately request your complete claim file from CNA. This file contains all internal notes, internal medical reviewer opinions, and vocational assessments that CNA used to justify their decision. Reviewing this hidden data allows us to see exactly where the insurance company took shortcuts, giving us a roadmap to dismantle their arguments.
Protect Your Future with Professional Representation
Your career represents a massive investment of your time, intellect, and energy. When your health prevents you from continuing that work, you deserve the financial protection you paid for.
Fighting a massive corporation like CNA Financial Corporation while managing a serious health condition is an uneven battle. By partnering with Jonathan M. Feigenbaum, Esquire, you level the playing field. We handle the paperwork, legal deadlines, and aggressive insurance adjusters, so you can focus entirely on your health while we secure your future.
Contact us today at 617-307-7308 to schedule a complimentary consultation regarding your denied CNA long-term disability claim.