Insurance companies are run to make a profit. To them, having to pay long term disability benefits to a policyholder who’s become too ill or injured to work is a loss. To avoid a loss, the insurance company will often go to great lengths to show the policyholder is not disabled and can work, even […]
Category: Denial Tactics
How to Beat Allegations of Non-Compliance in Disability Claims
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.
IME – TSA Insurance Denial Tactic Used by Insurance Companies
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.
Bad Faith Insurance Laws in Disability Claims
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.
Risks of Suspending Specialty Duties of Own Occupation – LTD Claim Denial
Like other recently disabled doctors and dentists, chances are you have considered suspending or deferring the specialty duties of your own occupation just so you can remain active in your practice. Be aware, the insurance company may use this against you.
The video above explains how insurance companies use every tactic they can to argue that claims for long term disability benefits are either undeserved or should be reduced. This occurs often with high-payout claims such as those for medical and dental professionals.
Is Your Insurer Ignoring Evidence of Disability in Your LTD Claim?
In the video above we discuss the insurance company’s tactic of “cherry picking” the records for evidence of your ability to work. This likely means the insurer is suppressing or ignoring evidence of disability as well.
You can call it many things – cherry picking, rejecting inconvenient evidence, selective observation, slanting, dismissing contrary evidence – but it all boils down to ignoring critical evidence. By doing so, an insurer is able to smother the relevant facts that prove you are unable to work.
Connect Multiple Impairments for a Winning Disability Appeal
Many disability claimants struggle with multiple impairments. And just as your LTD claim must link your health issues to your inability to work, it must also connect those various impairments to depict the totality of your disabling condition.
Listing multiple impairments can actually give insurers an opening to deny benefits. During their review of a long term disability claim, insurers often ignore, dismiss or intentionally isolate multiple medical conditions. They realize that, if all the health issues are considered as a whole, a reasonable review would find that claimant to be disabled.
How Objective Medical Evidence Affects Your Disability Claim
Insurers frequently deny disability benefits based on the lack of “objective medical evidence.” This can make or break your claim.
Our video begins with a reminder that disability insurance companies are always looking for ways to reduce their liability. They want to cut costs, and so have developed strategies and tactics by which they are able to reduce long term disability benefits – and even deny benefits altogether, or terminate existing benefits.