Legal Question in Insurance Law in Pennsylvania

Disability claim, authorizations

Since I represent claimants, including claimants for disability benefits in Pennsylvania, I have some experience with this issue.

Such authorizations are a pretty routine part of the investigation of a disability claim. You may consider the information "irrelevant," but the insurance company wants to go fishing because it can't know what kind of info may turn up until it does.

If your policy was issued fairly recently (i.e., less than 2 years ago), then the company is going to be very interested in looking for evidence of pre-existing medical problems which weren't disclosed on the application. This could give them grounds to rescind (void) the policy completely.

Yes, the policy language which requires you to give authorizations is "boilerplate," in the sense that it's standard langauge found in every policy. But that certainly doesn't mean a court won't enforce it. (Actually, "boilerplate" means contract language which is designed to be absolutely enforceable with no loopholes or exceptions).

Feel free to call or email me if you would like to consult about your claim. You have to be very careful at this stage.

The above does not constitute legal opinion and is offered for the purposes of discussion only. The law differs in every jurisdiction, and you should not rely on any opinion except that of an attorney you have retained, who has a professional duty to advise you after being fully informed of all the pertinent facts and who is familiar with the applicable law.