You Counted on Their Promise to Pay. Make Them Keep It.
We Have Been Making Them Keep Their Promises for 30 Years
Today’s video brings shocking news to many group disability claimants: If you are awarded disability benefits by Social Security as a lump sum (in addition to your group LTD insurance benefits), your insurance carrier can ask that you turn over your SSDI lump sum award to them.
Most employer-sponsored long term disability plans are explicitly written so that the insurer benefits when SSA approves a claimant’s SSDI claim.
Disability insurance plans offered through an employer can provide critical disability benefits. However, there is another important fact about group coverage every employee should realize:
Most group disability plans have provisions that offset (reduce) LTD insurance benefits, if that employee has other sources of income.
The video above explains how an award of Social Security Disability Insurance can offset your LTD monthly benefit amount. As a rule, this stipulation affects long term disability benefits and only in rare situations affects short term benefits.
Have you received a denial letter from your long term disability insurance company? Now is not the time to fold in despair; it is time to take action! But first of all, what happened? Why did the insurance carrier deny your claim?
Remember that in group disability claims, your claim information is reviewed and evaluated by claims handlers who work for the insurance company. This reveals an inherent conflict of interest in most group disability cases.
“Can you appeal a long term disability denial yourself? Yes, but it’s not a good idea.” As stated in the above video, this advice may be a rude awakening for many claimants. Why is filing an LTD appeal yourself a bad decision? The reasons become more apparent when you consider things from the insurer’s point of view.
To prevail in a long term disability claim dispute, one of the first things to identify is the law that will govern your disability insurance appeal. There is a great difference between appealing a disability claim that is under group coverage, as opposed to individual, or private coverage.
Our video talks about ERISA law. The acronym ERISA stands for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and is the federal law that governs group disability insurance plans. Group coverage is typically provided by your employer, or in some cases through professional associations and trade groups.
Our video discusses how disability insurance companies can reduce or limit disability benefits in group, or employer-sponsored, LTD plans. This is achieved through the wording and terms written into the disability insurance policy.
Do you know what benefits are limited in your disability plan?
Today’s video talks about how disability insurers can use allegations of non-compliance in disability claims as a way to deny benefits. Possibly the most common forms of “non-compliance” favored by insurers is when you choose to not follow your doctor’s advice.
Fearing serious side effects, or lacking the money to handle large medical expense, you might be justified in refusing to take prescribed medications, or deciding to not undergo recommended surgeries or treatments. But it is a sure bet the insurance company will do all they can to turn your decision against you as a way to dismiss your claim on the basis of non-compliance.
One thing most ERISA disability insurance companies don’t want you to know is that they have a playbook of denial tactics used to protect their financial interests. It is one of the main reasons it’s so hard to prove your claim and win the disability benefits that are rightfully yours.
A common tactic we often help our claimants fight in their battle to win their disability claim is the IME – TSA insurance denial tactic.
In the video above, attorney Marc Whitehead explains why group disability insurance claims that have reached the Erisa disability claim litigation stage can be difficult to litigate in court. If your insurance company denies your disability claim, there is a big difference in what you can do depending on whether your claim is under a …
Bad faith insurance laws protect the public from unfair or fraudulent practices by insurance companies. These are state laws, and each state’s definition of bad faith and associated regulations varies.
With regards to disability benefits, bad faith law generally applies only to individual disability insurance policies that you personally buy through an insurance company agent or rep.
