NEW YORK – The nation’s largest disability insurer – and a major Maine employer – was hit Tuesday with a class action lawsuit charging the company wrongly denied thousands of claims in order to cut costs.

The suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, charges UnumProvident Corp. “has illegally victimized, and continues to victimize, many thousands of disabled Americans.”

UnumProvident has already been sued by a former doctor at the company, who leveled similar allegations, and by numerous policy-holders with denied claims.

The new lawsuit claims non-medical personnel at UnumProvident routinely determine which claims should be denied, and then use their own medical staff to create a “paper trail” to justify the decision.

The suit charges UnumProvident and its subsidiaries “operate long term disability denial factories, efficiently denying claims, not on the merits of an individual claim but, rather, to satisfy the self-interested financial goals of UnumProvident and other group insurers.”