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Stennett & Casino filed suit against our client’s life insurance company for not paying benefits following his wife’s death. Sally taught the hearing-impaired at the public school. She herself was deaf and communicated mostly by sign language. Her speech is called deaf speech which is difficult to understand until one becomes accustomed to it. Sally’s benefit package as a teacher included life insurance and disability insurance. The premiums for those insurances were deducted from her paycheck.  Both policies were written by the same Insurance Company. Sally received a cancer diagnosis in early 2020. She stopped working as a teacher in [...]

Accidental Death and Disability policies (AD&D) require that one’s death be caused by an “accident” to trigger coverage. The term “accident” is usually defined as an “unforeseeable, unintended, and sudden event.” These policies will also contain several exclusions including one for death due to an illness or the treatment thereof. Insurers continually deny benefits under an accidental death policy when death results from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. When death is caused by medication that is prescribed to treat an illness insurers cite the “illness and treatment thereof” clause to deny the claim. Despite this exclusion Stennett & Casino [...]

Our client’s husband died as a result of a subdural hematoma (bleeding on the brain).  Subdural hematomas are typically caused by trauma to the head.  Our client found her husband unconscious on the bedroom floor upon returning from church.  He died several days later in the hospital. Zurich, who provided Accidental Death Coverage, claimed that the subdural hematoma was caused by a spontaneous bleed due to the use of Coumadin (a blood thinner), and not by the fall. Zurich pointed to the lack of evidence of external trauma to the head and medical literature supporting the potential for spontaneous bleeds [...]