What You Should Know Before You Read:
- New York Life has increasingly denied long-term disability claims related to long COVID, often arguing that symptoms are subjective or self-reported or that there is not enough medical evidence.
- Long COVID can cause serious impairments—like brain fog, fatigue, and shortness of breath—and lead to other medical conditions that make full-time work impossible.
- Insurance companies may wrongly dismiss long COVID as a legitimate disability, ignoring real medical evidence and expert opinions.
- Dabdoub Law Firm has extensive experience taking on major insurance companies and winning complex long COVID disability claims nationwide.
Long COVID and Long-Term Disability: A Growing Conflict
As the long-term effects of COVID-19 become more widely recognized by the medical community, a troubling trend has emerged among long-term disability insurers. More and more individuals suffering from post-COVID complications are seeing their LTD claims denied outright, even when backed by credible doctors, objective testing, and clear documentation of disability.
These denials often follow a similar pattern: the insurance company claims that symptoms like fatigue, cognitive impairment, and shortness of breath are “self-reported” and therefore not disabling. In other words, they’re dismissing the lived reality of long COVID sufferers, reducing their struggles to a matter of opinion rather than a legitimate medical condition.
What Symptoms Are Considered “Self-Reported”?
In many denial letters from New York Life, the insurer labels key symptoms as "subjective" or "self-reported." These typically include:
- Chronic fatigue
- Cognitive dysfunction (brain fog)
- Shortness of breath or chest pain
- Headaches and dizziness
- Post-exertional malaise (worsening of symptoms after activity)
- Sleep disturbances
- Depression and anxiety
Because there is no single diagnostic test that “proves” long COVID, insurance companies use this ambiguity to their advantage. They argue that without objective lab results or imaging that show clear impairment, the claim doesn't meet the policy’s definition of disability.
Why This Approach Is Flawed and Unfair
This denial strategy ignores a key reality: many disabling conditions do not present clearly on imaging or standard lab work. Long COVID, like conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and post-concussive syndrome, often involves complex interactions between the immune system, nervous system, respiratory system and other bodily functions that are not easily captured by traditional testing.
Medical providers and research institutions, including the CDC and NIH, recognize long COVID as a real, disabling condition. Ignoring expert medical opinions in favor of “lack of objective evidence” is not only misguided, but legally questionable under ERISA and bad faith insurance practices.
How New York Life Denies Valid Long COVID Claims
New York Life may use the following tactics in denying your claim:
- Cherry-Picking Medical Records: Insurers may focus on notes that describe good days while ignoring documentation of significant functional impairments or fluctuating symptoms.
- Using Non-Specialist Medical Reviews: They may rely on doctors who have never treated you and often have no experience in post-viral illness such as long COVD to second-guess your treating physicians.
- Dismissing Credible Physician Support: Even when multiple treating doctors confirm you are unable to work, the insurer may say their opinions lack “objective support.”
What You Can Do and How We Can Help
If your long-term disability claim for long COVID has been denied by New York Life, do not give up. These claims are winnable, but they require the right strategy and legal team. We have spent the last couple years fine tuning our long COVID strategy to be a winning strategy.
- We build powerful appeals. We help gather comprehensive medical documentation, expert evaluations, and functional assessments to strengthen your case.
- We know how to challenge biased medical reviews. We expose flaws in New York Life’s denial reasoning and hold them accountable for ignoring medical consensus.
- We litigate when necessary. If an appeal doesn’t succeed, our team is ready to take your case to federal court. We have a track record of successfully resolving these cases.
- We understand long COVID. We have worked with doctors and providers around the country who specialize in conditions like long COVID and have learned how this multi-systemic condition impacts the body and a person's ability to work. We use that knowledge to work up a long term disability case on initial claim, appeal or in litigation.
Most importantly, you don’t pay us unless we win. We represent clients across the country, taking on every major insurance company and we know what it takes to beat them. Call and speak with a long term disability attorney today and see how we can help you.