You received and counted on disability benefits every month, but now your disability payments stopped. Why?
Let’s say you were fortunate enough to have short-term disability (STD) or long-term disability (LTD) coverage as one of the benefits provided by your employer. While you were still employed, you became unable to perform the duties of your job due to an injury or sickness, and you applied for STD or LTD benefits. The insurance company (think Unum, Lincoln, Hartford, Mutual of Omaha, Prudential, Cigna, etc.) approved your claim and began paying you monthly benefits.
There are many reasons why the insurance company may have stopped paying your benefits, and BurnettDriskill can help you with almost all of them.
It could be that the insurance company recently flooded you with new claim forms and asked you to complete and return them so that the insurance company can determine whether you continue to be disabled. Disability paperwork is complicated and tricky. This is by the design of the insurance company. If you fail to dot every “i” and cross every “t,” the insurance company will use that as a reason to stop paying you. Many times, they’ll send you the same forms and requests over and over just to confuse you. We have experience in handling “continuing disability” paperwork for our clients. We can help you satisfy the (unreasonable) paperwork demands the insurance company makes.
It could be that your disability policy has a definition of “disability” that changes after a period of time. In most LTD policies, after 1 or 2 years, the definition of “disability” changes to make it more difficult to qualify for benefits. When you were approved, you likely only had to prove that your injury or sickness prevented you from performing the duties of the job you had when you became disabled. However, when the definition changes, you have to prove that your injury or sickness prevents you from performing the duties of ANY job – including the “easiest” and most sedentary job you can imagine. We represent many clients who come to us when this definitional change occurs, and the insurance company has stopped paying them. We can help you gather important evidence and force the insurance company to reconsider its decision to stop paying you.
The insurance company may also stop paying you because you have received benefits for the maximum duration of the policy. STD policies only pay benefits for a “short” period of time – often 6 months. When your benefits have been exhausted, the insurance company no longer has to pay you. (Although if you also have LTD, the insurance company should begin paying you once your STD benefits are exhausted.) Most LTD policies end payments when you reach “Normal Retirement Age.” That’s usually around your 65th birthday, depending on the year you were born.
If that’s the reason why your benefits have ended, there’s not much that anyone can do. However, if you suspect that the insurance company has miscalculated either the amount of your benefit, the maximum duration of the policy, or your Normal Retirement Age, we’re happy to take a look.
The most important thing for you to remember is that if your benefits suddenly stop, you almost always have some legal recourse. You don’t have to simply accept the insurance company’s decision to stop paying you. There are strict time deadlines that apply to responding to these decisions, so if you want to fight, you have to act quickly.
We’ll be here if you need us.