The New Year is off to an exciting start with two noteworthy appellate decisions, one favorable to a plan participant and one favorable to a plan sponsor. First up is a case in which the Eighth Circuit reversed a denial of disability benefits to a long-term recipient of such benefits: Roehr v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, No. 21-1559, __ F.4th __, 2021 WL 6109959 (8th Cir. Dec. 27, 2021) (Before Circuit Judges Kelly, Erickson, and Grasz). 

Insurers who are stuck with long-term expensive disability claims are often looking for ways to get rid of them. However, in this new decision from the Eighth Circuit, the court has warned insurers that they must be careful in how they deny those claims. While an insurer is not obligated to keep paying benefits just because it has done so in the past, it needs to have a good explanation for reversing itself, especially if it has been paying for almost a decade and the medical evidence has remained largely unchanged. Continue Reading Eighth Circuit Warns Disability Administrators to Think Twice Before Terminating Disability Benefits, While Eleventh Circuit Allows Employer to Terminate Life Insurance Benefits Despite Written and Oral Promises That Such Benefits Would be Maintained