have affected the administration of the Policy., Id. The conflict of interest must exist more than in theory, it must be an actual conflict of interest. If the two-part Atwood test is met, Unum's denial of benefits is reviewed under a de novo standard of review. Plaintiff lV[esser argues that he meets both parts of the Atwood test. First, Messer asserts Unum had an apparent conflict of interest. An apparent conflict of interest exists where the "plan administrator is responsible for both funding and paying for claims." Bendixen v. Standard Insurance Co., 185 F.3d 939, 942 (9th Cir.1999). Unum does have an apparent conflict of interest because it funds and pays for claims. See Lang v. Long-Term Disability Plan of Sponsor Applied Remote Technology, Inc., 125 F.3d 794, 797 (9th Cir.1997) (<HOLDING>). Because of ljnum's apparent conflict of
holding that plan administrator that was also insurer operated under conflict of interest holding that an administrator was involved in a joint venture with the insurer and thereby exposed to bad faith liability based on evidence that the administrator collected premiums handled claims and took a commission on the premiums collected and a percentage of the renewal commissions holding that it is wrong to assume a financial conflict of interest from the fact that the plan administrator is also the insurer holding the district court erred by finding an automatic conflict of interest merely because insurer and administrator were the same holding that an administrator who receives premiums and pays beneficiaries from its owli assets has an apparent conflict of interest