MAINE COURT-RELEASE UNUM STUDY:

The Maine Bureau of Insurance has been told to release a confidential report that it had accounting firm Arthur Andersen prepare on the merger of Unum Life Insurance Co. and Provident Co. Inc. in 1999. According to the law firm Anderson Kill & Olick, Maine officials approved the merger to create the world’s largest private disability insurers now known as UnumProvident but refused to disclose to the public information contained in the report. After several years of efforts , the Consumer Federation of America, California Consumer Health Care Council and United Policyholders have obtained a court order from Kennebec County Superior Court requiring that the Andersen report be disclosed in its entirety, excepting only an appendix in which individual policyholders were named. The actual report with the names of individual policyholders hidden is expected to be released early this month.