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After working for a law firm as a healthcare attorney for more than seven years, Amanda Foster began having intractable migraine headaches, so she stopped working. She received long term disability (LTD) benefits from Principal Life Insurance Company (Principal) from September 4, 2013, until they were terminated effective December 9, 2014.

Foster filed two administrative appeals and submitted additional medical records. After Principal paid numerous physician reviewers, it denied her claim and found she was not disabled according to the meaning of her disability insurance policy. She then filed an ERISA lawsuit. That was decided in favor of Principal, so she appealed that denial to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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In this video, Attorneys Gregory Dell and Rachel Alters discuss a recent court decision in which Principal Life attempted to ignore an income qualifier in an “any occupation” definition as a technique to deny benefits. The court determined the policy language to be ambiguous and provided an interpretation in favor of the claimant. If you…

Recently, two different lawsuits were filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) against the Principal Insurance Company of America. In both cases filed through the respective plaintiffs’ disability attorney, Principal was alleged to have wrongfully denied the respective plaintiffs their claims for long-term disability (LTD) benefits.

The First Case

The plaintiff through a…