We have been involved in a protracted battle with Cigna Disability Insurance Company for a few years now. At first we were like many that they preyed upon: naive, hurting, scared people who could not fight back. I am legally and medically disabled as well and have been since 2001.
We were angry, nervous about the future and definitely felt like we were in enemy territory. They ran us through the wringer for over a year before finally agreeing with all of the doctors reports, tests and documentation: my husband is now mentally long-term disabled. They paid back most of what they should have paid and we were given benefits for a year...and that is when everything went wrong.
You see, as of the first of 2014 CDIC arbitrarily cut off the benefits and closed his case. They had no evidence of a return to health, nothing; yet CDIC chose to reverse their earlier decision and stop all benefits. For good. It would seem that it was time to go back into a corner, worry and pray they just "did the right thing", right? Wrong.
At first we started playing by their rules as we did last time, sending off the "appeal" fax in hopes it would make someone do the right thing, read the records and come to the same conclusion that people 10x smarter than they are have already done. Right. We are learning more and more about how CDIC operates and how to work with and around them. My husband and I are between us not much of a foe for anyone, let alone a multinational like CDIC . However we do have a circle of friends made over the years (we have both been in the tech industry most of our lives and my husband was a software engineer for nearly 25 years) who see what CDIC is doing and are angry about it. As such, we have a small but dedicated team of volunteers in various locations helping us out on everything including war planning, background investigations, tactical research and more. I even have someone helping me with this due to my disability. These are some great if somewhat crazy people!
What we are learning is that CDIC is not perfect, makes mistakes but also pulls some pretty underhanded tricks to avoid doing the right thing. We are catching them at it. At first we were just trying to get to the bottom of the case of what brain-trust at CDIC did this (we have since found out...that and more) when everyone on the team (we do impromptu conference calls) started noticing defect after defect in the handling of this case. And if they are doing it to us, they could be doing it to you as well.
We are also learning the strategies that CDIC uses to deceive and swindle hapless disabled people out of their benefits. Since playing by their rules resulted in nothing but pain last time, we are taking a page from CDIC's play-book and turning it against them.
What you, the reader should take away from this is that we have been denied benefits for some time and are having to mount this war with CDIC with no money and little time (CDIC keeps this up for much longer and it won't matter where we live). This means we are figuring out ways that everyday folks who have had the pleasure of CDIC's tender care can use for themselves. Fair warning: our planning team does think quite a ways outside the box so the strategies and tactics here may not be text-book...<evil grin>
On this blog we will be posting a number of different tracts of information:
- A journal of events as they happen. What we try and how well it works. We learn from our mistakes as they help us devise new and creative attacks.
- Resources for other people in the same boat as we are. These will include general resources for the disabled and specific resources for doing things to help make the playing field with CDIC a little more even for the disabled.
- Specific tutorials contributed by our team of social and computer engineers showing how to "pierce the veil" so to speak at CDIC, ways to get around their rules and the rather childish games they seem to be so fond of.
- Fun and rumors: if you cannot laugh at the screwed up things in your life, then what is the point? Nothing here should be taken seriously but we all need to vent from the pressures of fighting such a David and Goliath-like battle 24/7.
And more as it develops. At no point are we condoning the breaking of any local laws. We simply know how we (and apparently many) tried to work with CDIC resulted only in insulting, demeaning behavior leaving us ultimately at their mercy. Since they started the games again we realized we would rather mount an unconventional defense than the one we know that (even though true and correct) is doomed to failure. To hell with that. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain so little is off the table. Certainly we are not shy about doing to CDIC what they do to us. So if forcing CDIC to do the right thing results in a little fun for someone else, well so be it. If you gotta go to hell in a hand-basket, you should at least enjoy the ride, true?
We have a LOT of things to post and it will probably take some time but not much. We will also be insisting on registering for comments; it is not much more than a speed bump but we know CDIC astro-turfs these forums and are taking steps to put a halt to that. This may be a pain but this is not a crusade for us; it is just another way honest people can fight back against seemingly insurmountable odds.
We have stated here pretty much what the purpose of this blog is, to disseminate information and strategies to make CDIC earn their money (and for you to help keep yours). However the reason for the blog is the subject of another story, to kick things off.
Soon,
Mom Cobb
CignaWarJournal at Gmail dot com
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