Disability Insurance Benefit Tips

There are a couple of differences between a private claim and an ERISA claim.No.1 and probably the biggest problem with ERISA is that you are not entitled to a jury trial when a claim is governed by ERISA. So, which essentially means if you don't have the right to a jury trial that means that a judge is going to make the decision for you and it gets even more complicated than that. When the judge is asked ...

If you already are on long term disability, and you're looking for a lump sum buyout, there are multiple reasons to consider a lump sum buyout. No.1 and probably the most important reason is security, and that means security for your family. With long term disability policies, there are no rights to survivorship, meaning, it's not like a life insurance policy where God forbid, if something were to happen to yo...

There are multiple factors that a long term disability insurance company will consider when doing a buyout.The No.1 factor is whether or not the carrier thinks they are going to have to pay you for the maximum period of your disability policy.No.2 is whether or not the carrier thinks whether or not you are going to live till the end of the maximum benefit period.And No.3 is the value of your policy...

If you are already collecting benefits, we often negotiate lump sum buyouts on behalf of our clients. And a lump sum buyout is essentially a lump sum amount of money which a disability carrier will agree to give you in exchange for you surrendering your policy. Now there is no requirement whatsoever for the disability carriers to buyout your policy and not every single long term disability carrier engages in l...

The claims most commonly challenged by the disability insurance carriers are the claims that are subjective in nature, claims that don't have objective medical proof, such as MRIs or x-rays that can show for instance herniated discs. Subjective claims include fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, even so much as depression or other mental health disorders.A lot of these policies even now have a two year ...

There is what I consider to be a very high threshold to get approved for long term disability benefits. And probably what I would consider to be 80% of your chance of getting approved for disability is the support that you have from your treating physicians.If you don't have a treating physician that is going to say that you are unable to perform the duties of your occupation, then you wouldn't have any ch...

Many clients will call our office and say that they are thinking of applying for long term disability but they are not sure if they will get approved. And we regularly work with clients to do a review of their policy, to advise them of things that they can or cannot do in order to be entitled for benefits.It's the rare case of somebody who gets hit by a bus or has a major catastrophic event that prevents t...

If your long-term disability claim is denied your remedies will differ based upon whether or not your claim is governed by ERISA. If your claim is governed by ERISA you must file an ERISA appeal with your disability insurance company and exhaust administrative remedies before you can file a lawsuit. All ERISA lawsuits are filed in Federal Court and our law firm handles cases throughout the country. Learn more ...

Under many policies if you are unable to perform the substantial and material duties of your occupation, then you do not need to suffer a loss of income in order to collect total disability benefits. Under many of these same policies, if you are only residually disabled, as opposed to totally disabled, then you must generally suffer a percentage loss of pre-disability income as defined by the policy....

Yes, if your policy has an "own occupation" definition of disability, you can work in a different occupation while collecting disability income benefits. However, the duties of your new occupation must be substantially and materially different.

The most important aspect of a claim for disability benefits is the information contained within the initial application submitted to the insurance carrier. The application process is complex and most applicants do not realize the manner in which insurance companies scrutinize and investigate claims for disability benefits. Our law firm has counseled and guided hundreds of applicants throughout the application...