We are often asked about timing for a long term disability insurance claim, especially by high income professionals. Should they keep working if they are physically or mentally struggling to keep performing the tasks of their occupation? Should they switch to part time work? It’s a good question with serious implications.
First and foremost, if your disability is putting you or patients or clients at risk, common sense and your malpractice or liability insurance dictates that you stop and find other tasks to do within your practice or company. That might trigger a disability insurance claim.
Your best next step is to speak with an experienced long term disability insurance attorney about your situation. Your policy should have provisions setting the terms of your coverage, including:
- Date for documenting a disabling condition.
- Time from the data of disability to when you must file a claim.
- Whether or not your policy includes partial work, or residual, coverage.
- How your income and disability benefits are determined
- What proof of loss you need to support a claim
You will want to create a claim timeline for yourself to determine important dates and to ensure compliance with requirements.
Should You Talk with HR About Filing a Claim?
If your policy is part of your employee benefits package, you may be required to tell the HR department that you intend to file a claim. Your company may have its own requirements for reporting your medical condition, but there are laws prohibiting employers from obtaining private medical information without consent. This is another reason to consult with an experienced long term disability attorney—to protect yourself in the workplace and protect your disability insurance claim.
Should I Resign my Position? Short answer: NO!
While you could apply for long term disability benefits after you have left a job, you will have just handed the LTD insurance company an easy way to deny your claim. Gaining any kind of employee benefits after resigning becomes much more complicated, if not impossible, if you are not an active employee. Don’t resign and hand the LTD company an easy denial.
If your LTD policy is from your employer, you will need to obtain a copy of your policy. If you don’t have a hard copy, do not rush to download a copy from your HR department’s employee portal. You need to have the exact policy that you paid for when you signed up or the policy then in effect if employer sponsored. Policies change over time, and provisions that might have been generous ten years ago are not likely to be in the policies issued today.
If you are worried about having HR learn that you are disabled enough to be considering filing a claim, there is no need to disclose why you are asking for this information. You can say your spouse wants to see it, or your personal insurance broker has asked for it. You are not required to disclose medical information to your employer simply because you’re asking to have a copy of the policy.
What Will a Disability Insurance Attorney Tell Me That HR Won’t?
Your HR department may be outstanding, but they are not subject matter professionals when it comes to Long Term Disability insurance. LTD insurance is a complex area of the law, combining federal employee benefits law (ERISA) with insurance law and contracts law. For more than two decades, disability attorney Jason Newfield has represented insurance lawyers, insurance agents and even commercial litigation attorneys who thought they could represent themselves with LTD matters and learned the hard way that they could not.
This is a unique area of the law and unless the person in your HR department manages LTD claims all day long, it is unlikely they are familiar with the nuances of disability claims.
Here’s what an experienced disability insurance attorney will be able to tell you in a consultation:
- How the insurance company typically responds to people with your disability.
- What you can expect if your monthly benefit is for $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000, and up.
- How your age will impact the likelihood of a successful claim.
- How your occupation is treated in the claims process
- How any additional income streams may impact your claim.
Retaining a long term disability attorney during the initial claim process is recommended. Consider the value of your claim over time. If you are in your 40s and expected to work for 20 years with a monthly benefit of $10,000, your claim could be worth $2.4 million. This is why the insurance company is eager to deny your claim and why you should be aggressive about protecting it.
For older workers with high monthly benefits, the big question is how long their LTD policy would pay claims. Jason Newfield has worked with many claimants whose policies paid disability benefits as long as they lived—which are equally worthy of protection.
If you have questions about how to manage the transition from working to being on long term disability, call Jason Newfield for a free consultation. This is simply too important to risk.
