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How To Proceed When Making Your First Long Term Disability Claim? December 15, 2017

If you are a young adult, one that takes pride in handling the responsibilities handed to you by your first employer, you are not likely to anticipate make a long term disability claim. Still, there are some jobs where one brief event could force an employee to proceed with such an action. That is why this article reviews the information required by someone that has not yet learned a great deal about long term disability claims.

The types of medical conditions that could permanently disable an adult

Impairment to what is generally viewed as a normal body function or structure. If the existing condition remains hidden to most people, it can be difficult for a lawyer to prove development of such impairment.

An activity limitation: a problem that arises during an attempt to execute a specific task.

Participation restrictions: A problem experienced in more than one life situation; a group of problems that slow the performance of certain actions in a given situation.

While an injury lawyer must know the specifics associated with each medical condition, that same lawyer must remain aware of insurance companies’ practices. In addition, that injury lawyer needs to understand how each insurance company has adopted their own definition for a long-term condition. It is called a working definition. In this case, it equates possession of a long term disability with the need to live with a given medical condition for more than 6 months.

Advantages enjoyed by a patient that has hired an injury lawyer, after accepting his or her need to live with a permanent medical condition.

If covered by the employer’s policy, the employee with the permanent medical condition can gain short-term protection for up to 6 months. After that, the same employee can get long-term coverage for up to 2 years. At that point, coverage will not continue, unless the disabled adult can prove that he or she lacks the ability to take on those responsibilities that used to be an accepted part of his or her job.

In the absence of a personal injury lawyer in St. Albert, an insurance company put forward evidence that a given individual does have the ability to return to the workforce. It then becomes the injury lawyer’s job to counter the argument from the insurance company. A good injury lawyer might get pictures of a still-disabled client, so that such pictures can be compared with claims that the same disabled adult could perform well in a work environment.

The insurance company may hope to suggest that the disabled adult can now perform the right sort of job. In contrast to such a strategy, the lawyer for the disabled adult will try to prove that his or her client could never handle any type of work. A lawyer might urge a client to get a long-term policy, which would allow that same client to pair such a policy with the coverage offered by the same client’s employer.