馃攳
What Does the New York Life Insurance Company Buyout of Cigna Mean for Policyholders? - YouTube
Channel: Dell Disability Law
[0]
[Music]
[4]
hi I'm Greg Dell with attorneys Dell and
[6]
Shaffer and today I'm here with attorney
[8]
Stephen Jessup how are you Steve doing
[10]
great great good kind of an interesting
[13]
news development that we're gonna
[15]
discuss today which came about through
[17]
the story that just hit that we found
[21]
out about right before the new year end
[23]
of 2019 about New York Life Insurance
[26]
Company buying the disability and life
[31]
division of Cigna life insurance company
[33]
and I know as soon as I got the news we
[36]
all kind of called each other and were
[38]
really shocked about this event taking
[41]
place but I think this is gonna be a
[43]
major event in terms of the whole
[47]
disability distri because Cigna was
[48]
already like one of the top five largest
[51]
group disability insurers but what was
[54]
your initial reaction why were you so
[56]
surprised by this purchase I mean I was
[58]
so surprised men because New York Life
[60]
has never had a foothold in the group
[62]
disability insurance divisions meaning
[64]
writing employer-provided policies most
[67]
policies see with New York Life for
[68]
individual policies that people purchase
[70]
on their own so even though they've been
[73]
around since the 1800s jumping into a
[76]
completely new you know I'm not area of
[79]
the law but processing of it it was a
[80]
big surprise and there wasn't any
[83]
rumblings of it like you saw with the
[85]
Hartford Aetna and Lincoln Liberty there
[87]
was like some talk it was just hey did
[90]
you see this and I was like you got to
[91]
be kidding right so we've seen a lot of
[93]
consolidation going on we saw the Aetna
[96]
Hartford merger we saw the Liberty
[98]
Lincoln merger and now we see this
[100]
merger which this was the biggest one
[102]
because Hartford Aetna was like a little
[104]
over a billion dollars this was a six
[107]
point three billion dollar transaction
[109]
which shows the magnitude of how big
[111]
Cigna is now that included life
[113]
insurance we don't know exactly how much
[114]
was disability and how much was life but
[116]
for people who are watching this video
[118]
they're either people who have New York
[121]
Life disability insurance policies and
[123]
now they're concerned about what's going
[127]
to happen
[127]
you know is there gonna be any
[129]
difference but most importantly the
[130]
Cigna people are gonna be concerned
[131]
what's gonna happen when New York life
[133]
takes over my claim or when I go to make
[135]
a claim what should I expect so what are
[138]
your thoughts obviously we don't know
[139]
because this is we're filming this
[140]
January 2019 six
[143]
sorry twenty six months from now we're
[147]
gonna they're gonna start to do this
[148]
transaction Tran transition so what do
[150]
you think's gonna happen I mean I think
[151]
from the perspective if you have a New
[153]
York Life policy it's an individual
[156]
policy so I don't think they're gonna be
[158]
affected by this but the signal policy
[160]
holders and there are a lot of them I
[162]
mean in any given day proportionately
[165]
speaking we get more calls with signal
[167]
denials or issues with their so now when
[170]
a company is is buying they're gonna
[172]
take a look at everything and look at
[173]
how the processing and claims are
[175]
they're gonna start investigating claims
[177]
it's like what we saw you know when you
[179]
were mentioning in the Lincoln Liberty
[180]
especially in my experience all the
[184]
liberty old Liberty Mutual claims were
[186]
really starting to get reviewed we saw
[187]
an uptick in denials for both sides of
[189]
it so there could be that New York Life
[191]
will come in the way that they're going
[193]
to evaluate see if they think there's
[195]
cases that should be denied and I
[197]
honestly think that there stands a
[198]
better chance just looking at the
[200]
history of those other acquisitions last
[202]
year that there's going to be a lot of
[204]
claim denials that could be happening
[206]
and even for people who've been on claim
[208]
for an extended period of time to think
[210]
you know you're relatively secure
[211]
haven't had too many issues those claims
[214]
are gonna come under scrutiny now so
[216]
it's a matter of making sure that the
[218]
information is correct in the files and
[220]
everything's being documented still so
[221]
it could cause quite a bit of turbulence
[224]
for people heading into the summer of
[226]
this year okay so it's actually a really
[230]
interesting merger because Cigna is the
[231]
gigantic group disability player which
[234]
is ERISA like you said employer-provided
[236]
policies then you have New York Life
[237]
which is primarily individual disability
[240]
which is usually managed by unum life
[242]
insurance company disability company
[244]
that we talked about but what's
[246]
interesting here so you have this
[248]
individual and New York group on a non
[249]
Cigna now they're gonna come together
[251]
but now you're gonna see New York Life
[254]
the one who's gonna say hey this is how
[256]
we were evaluating our claims and start
[259]
to bring those over
[261]
to Cigna so what should a signal person
[263]
do and here's here's my thoughts number
[265]
one is I think that if you're a Sigma
[267]
policyholder you should start thinking
[268]
that this is like a whole new claim over
[271]
again because there's gonna be people at
[273]
New York Life who really want to try to
[275]
prove something with the claim like I
[278]
got a look at this claim I got to do
[280]
something different and they're gonna
[281]
completely reevaluate the claim you're
[283]
gonna have a new nurse consultant a new
[285]
doctor possibly internally review the
[287]
claim so what you should do if you're a
[289]
signal policyholder right now is you
[291]
need to ramp up your medical treatment
[294]
and by that I mean that if you're
[296]
usually only going once every six months
[299]
I would highly suggest that you start
[301]
going at least once a quarter don't be
[304]
complacent on what you used to do
[305]
because if you are and New York Life
[308]
doesn't do things that way they're gonna
[309]
just say you probably don't have enough
[311]
treatment and I think that's that's the
[313]
most important thing that these
[314]
claimants would signal need to do right
[316]
now and I think - one thing that could
[318]
really cause some issues here is chances
[319]
are though they'll maintain a lot of the
[321]
employees and people will be carried
[322]
over from Cigna just by volume they're
[324]
gonna have to but unlike the other
[326]
mergers that you mentioned where they
[328]
both were doing ERISA group stuff the
[330]
cultures are kind of the same here you
[332]
have the culture of individual private
[334]
policies and the culture of a company in
[336]
the group and how are those gonna clash
[338]
in the way like you said they do
[340]
business they evaluate they look at is
[342]
that going to cause issues we've seen
[344]
some issues in those other companies
[346]
mergers and it can be expected to be
[349]
seen here right and like who are they
[351]
gonna use for their medical reviews or
[352]
are they gonna go internal are they
[354]
going to go external but I think in the
[356]
beginning you're not gonna see a
[358]
tremendous disruption I think it's gonna
[360]
like New York Life is gonna make let's
[362]
get everything in let's get it into our
[363]
system let's get the processing set up
[366]
and then let's see how we're going to
[368]
streamline but I bet you they're gonna
[370]
have an individual division and a group
[372]
division and cygnus people will probably
[374]
all come over although there'll be some
[376]
internal transition you know directors
[380]
supervisors plus their in-house lawyers
[381]
as to how these claims are going to be
[383]
filed but regards to the fact we've
[385]
handled tons and tons of cases with
[387]
Cigna obviously we've been handling for
[390]
over 20 years the New York Life
[392]
Insurance cases we know
[393]
company's very well we know both of
[395]
their claims handling tactics so it's
[397]
just going to be a final decision as to
[400]
who's going to take the lead on what
[402]
technique they want to put in but it
[403]
should be interesting as it as it
[405]
evolved so if you have a question about
[407]
a New York life and life disability
[409]
claim or a sigma disability claim feel
[412]
free to give Steve or myself a call we
[414]
always offer a free initial consultation
[416]
and we look forward to the opportunity
[418]
to help you right away with your
[419]
disability claim
[428]
you
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage