ERISA Disability Claims: What Your Employer Won’t Tell You About Fighting Back
If you receive disability insurance through your employer, you might assume that filing a claim will be straightforward. After all, you’ve paid for coverage—either directly or through your employee benefits package—and you need those benefits because a medical condition is preventing you from working. Unfortunately, many employees discover that obtaining disability benefits through an employer-sponsored plan is far more complicated…
How to Approach Claims for Hidden Disabilities
Sufferers of hidden disabilities, or disabilities that are not immediately apparent, can face additional struggles in their insurance claims. An invisible disability like chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia doesn’t show up on an X-ray or MRI but can still have a significant effect on a person’s daily life and ability to earn income. The insurance system…
Stress and Disability: Can Long-Term Conditions Be Covered?
In today’s high-pressure work environments, white-collar professionals such as executives, consultants, attorneys, and physicians face a unique set of stressors. Long hours, demanding expectations, and 24/7 connectivity can take a toll on your mental and physical health. Over time, this unrelenting pressure can contribute to life-changing conditions like anxiety, depression, burnout, and even physical ailments …
What Does Long-Term Care Insurance Cover?
Over the past several decades, advances in health care, hygiene, nutrition, and other factors have helped increase life expectancy. But with longer lifespans also comes a greater need for assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and other long-term care options for seniors. Roughly half of all adults will need long-term care at some point in their …
Life Insurance Versus Accidental Death and Dismemberment: Do You Need Both?
If you have loved ones who depend on you for financial support, purchasing or enrolling in the right insurance coverage can provide crucial security and peace of mind. Even if something happens to you, your family should not have to worry about paying for education, keeping the house, or other needs. Traditionally, life insurance policies …
What Are Functional Limitations? (And How Do They Affect a Disability Claim?)
When you make a long-term disability claim, it is not enough to say that you cannot work. You must prove it. That means you need to have documentation that identifies your medical diagnoses, your symptoms, and your functional limitations. But what exactly is a functional limitation? When disability insurance lawyers evaluate your claim, they consider …
Can I Get Disability for My Back Surgery? A Claimant’s Guide
An estimated 60 to 80 percent of us will experience back pain during our lifetime. When conservative treatment options like injections and physical therapy do not control your chronic back pain, surgery might be your next option. If you are facing a spinal surgery, you are not alone. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of …
Will Illinois’ Courts Enforce a One-Sided Insurance Contract?
When you have health insurance, disability insurance, or property insurance, you may sometimes find that the insurer has an unreasonable amount of power over you — perhaps more than you anticipated when you purchased the policy years before. This issue is all too common. Insurers often design and execute unfair contracts designed to put you, the policyholder, …
Reporting Changed Circumstances to the LTD Company: When Is It a Good Idea?
If you’re receiving long-term disability benefits, you may find yourself in a confusing situation. It’s not uncommon for disabled people’s conditions to improve (or ebb and flow). However, the disability insurance company may argue that you’re no longer eligible for monthly benefit payments based on your improved circumstances. What are you supposed to do? Disabled …
Who Pays My Attorney Fees Under ERISA?
When you’re unable to work due to a serious health condition or injury, hiring a lawyer may seem like an unwanted expense. However, federal disability insurance laws may allow you to try to collect some attorney fees from your disability insurance carrier to offset your bill for attorney fees if you meet specific criteria. In …