Frank N. Darras

Darras founded DarrasLaw in 2010 to concentrate on representing disability and long-term clients with claims of individual and group insurance delays, denials and terminations. He left to narrow his focus to the disability sector after 22 years in the insurance bad faith field at Shernoff Bidart & Darras LLP.

Darras says his firms have recovered nearly a billion dollars in denied insurance benefits.

His approach is evident in the titles of articles he’s authored: “Disabling the Disability Carrier: The Insurers’ Top 10 Defenses and How to Defeat Them” and, to tackle the roadblocks limiting health care claims by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, “The Iceberg is Melting: ERISA Preemption and How to Avoid It.”

Now another challenge looms, Darras said. “It has been an avalanche of COVID cases and just when we thought we’d hit the crest, we ran into the COVID long-hauler issue.” In addition to that, Darras has worked to aid college and professional athletes with COVID-19 claims and to advocate for college athletes to be allowed to work and pay for protection against career-altering or career-ending sickness or injuries.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, we saw how many people were unable to get in to see the doctor or to file claims,” Darras said. “People were fighting for their lives, wrestling to get proper COVID-19 treatment or trying to save their loved ones.”

So in March 2020, he initiated a national petition on Change.org asking the Trump administration to create a 90-day moratorium and stay on all disability applications for benefits, reconsideration of denials, administrative appeal deadlines and filing deadlines for state and federal disability claims.

A month later the Employee Benefits Security Administration, an arm of the U.S. Department of Labor, issued deadline relief for those impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

And, with as many as 2,500 referrals and inquiries arriving at DarrasLaw each month, Darras said he enlarged the firm’s support staff to evaluate the potential incoming cases. “It’s been quite a task to help everybody,” he added.

In the case of one long-hauler, a first responder who ran marathons before contracting the virus but can now barely walk a block without shortness of breath and fatigue, Darras’ law partner Susan Grabarsky was able to reverse an insurer’s claims denial by helping family members perfect the runner’s claim, Darras said.

“This has been the most meaningful year for me in my 40 years in the law,” Darras said. “Helping these people is the silver lining in my practice.”

--John Roemer