Reliance Reprimanded Over Pattern of Arbitrary Benefit Denials

Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co. engaged in a “decades-long pattern of arbitrary” denials of disability benefit claims and other “misdeeds,” a federal judge in Mississippi said.

A review of Reliance’s behavior in disability cases found over 100 opinions in the last 21 years criticizing Reliance’s disability decisions, including over 60 opinions reversing a decision as an abuse of discretion or as arbitrary and capricious, Judge Carlton W. Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi said June 29.

Reeves’ decision denouncing the insurer’s practice to systematically deny disability benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ...