Your Guide to Understanding Your ARAG Explanation of Benefits

Picture this. You’ve worked with an ARAG network attorney to resolve a legal issue and now the case is at, or near, completion. Once the claim from the attorney has been reviewed and paid by ARAG, you will receive an explanation of benefits, also known as an EOB. And while we often compare legal insurance to health insurance, the explanation of benefits you’ll receive from ARAG is a bit different than the one you would receive from your health insurance.

When you work with ARAG, your plan coverage typically fits into one of the following categories:

• Paid in full
• Capped hours
• Reduced fee

Below, we’ve provided examples to help you understand exactly what you’re looking at.

1. Your case number and legal matter
   This describes the legal matter for which you would have received services. The case number was created after you answered a few questions to help us confirm coverage and create the case.
2. Plan coverage
   The plan coverage tells you the level of coverage provided by your ARAG legal plan. We explain plan coverage in more detail below.
3. Network attorney
   This is the name of the network attorney who submitted a claim to ARAG for your case. Take a moment to make sure the information here is correct. If not, contact our Customer Care team.
4. Attorney fees paid by you
   Based on your level of coverage this is the amount of attorney fees that you paid. You may have additional fees that you had to pay for this case that aren’t related to the attorney’s fees, such as court filing, copier or mediator fees.
5. Attorney’s rate and hours
   This is your network attorney’s hourly rate. This is what you would have paid the attorney per hour without your legal insurance.
6. Your estimated savings
   To calculate your estimated savings, take the number of hours that your network attorney worked on your case and multiply by their hourly rate.
7. Let us know if something is wrong
   If anything on this explanation of benefits looks incorrect, you can report the error via the link provided.

As we called out in #4 on the explanation of benefits, there are different levels of coverage for ARAG cases - including paid-in-full, capped hours and reduced fees.

• For paid in full coverages, your network attorney will bill ARAG directly for their legal services. However, as a reminder, this explanation of benefits does not include additional expenses that you might incur, such as court filing fees, court costs or other charges the attorney had to pay for initially on your behalf.
• For capped hour coverages, your explanation of benefits will show the maximum allowable hours covered by your insurance. If your allowance was exhausted, you will pay your network attorney separately for any additional time that goes over the hourly range.   
• In situations where your legal matter is not covered and not excluded, you may still receive at least a 25% reduction in fees when you work with a network attorney. You won’t ever receive an EOB for these types of case. You will directly pay the network attorney for their work.

Explanations of benefits are typically sent after all of the casework is complete – some time could pass before you receive one. Typically, you will receive an EOB via email, and you may also access it when you log in to the member portal.

As always, if you ever have any questions about your explanation of benefits or what your ARAG legal insurance plan covers, our Customer Care team is here to help. You can call them Monday through Friday, 7 am to 7 pm, Central time at 800-247-4184.