The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has held that an insurer must advise a long-term disability claimant of its internal appeal requirement within the actual plan document in order to establish a failure to exhaust defense.

In Wallace v. Beaumont Healthcare Employee Welfare Benefit Plan, No. 16-cv-10625 (E.D. Mich. January 18, 2017), Reliance-Standard Life Insurance Company moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint on the basis that she failed to exhaust her internal administrative remedies prior to filing suit.  The court denied the motion, holding, in part, that Reliance Standard had not included an appeal requirement within the express terms of its disability insurance contract. A statement advising of a right to appeal a denied claim in a letter is insufficient to secure a dismissal, according to the court. The court cited the opinion of another federal court in Montoya v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., No. 14-cv-02740 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 2, 2015) which also found Reliance Standard’s long-term disability form contract lacking any requirement of an internal appeal. The Wallace court held:

Having reviewed the Reliance policy, which Plaintiff attached to her Amended Complaint, this Court finds no discussion of an exhaustion requirement. The only requirement for bringing a legal action set forth in the policy reads: “No legal action may be brought against us to recover on this Policy within sixty (60) days after written proof of loss has been given as required by this Policy.” The policy does not incorporate the terms of any other document. To the contrary, it expressly states that the policy represents “the entire contract.” Nevertheless, even if this Court construed the denial of benefits letter as a plan document, it would hold that the letter did not mandate exhaustion as a prerequisite to bringing suit.

 

The court’s ruling in Wallace underscores the importance of carefully reviewing a claimant’s long-term disability contract for a disability insurer’s own compliance with ERISA when an exhaustion defense is raised.  The court’s ruling also increases access to disabled employees whose claims for disability benefits have been wrongfully denied or terminated.