10 More Legal Mistakes Professionals Make When
Filing a Claim for Disability (Mistake #8)
In an effort to provide professionals with more information about how the disability claims process works and identify some of the most common pitfalls for professionals filing disability claims, Comitz | Stanley attorneys Ed Comitz and Derek Funk have compiled an updated list of the 10 most common mistakes we are seeing physicians, dentists, and other professionals make when they file claims under the new post-2000 generation of disability policies (which are much more complex and stringent than the policies sold to professionals in the 1980s and 1990s).
In this post, we’ll be looking at the common mistake of having an inaccurate expectation of how the claims process works, and what it entails.
Mistake #8: Misunderstanding the Scope of the Investigation
Disability insurance companies have substantially broadened the scope of claims investigations over time. While many professionals expect and anticipate that the insurance company will review their medical records and ask for reports from their treating doctors, many professionals are surprised when the insurance company also requests a long list of additional information as part of the claim investigation, including tax and financial records of personal accounts, businesses, and trusts. Whereas many older policies merely required insureds to simply submit to a physical examination while the claim was pending, new policies grant disability insurance companies the right to require their insureds to undergo a host of other examinations, including vocational and rehabilitation examinations, occupational analyses, and psychiatric evaluations, and threaten suspension of benefits if the insured refuses to cooperate. As you might suspect, in most cases the insurance company’s evaluators are not incentivized to make fair decisions.
Action Step: Review your policy carefully and consult with an experienced disability insurance attorney prior to filing your claim, so that you know what the insurance company can and cannot do when investigating your claim.
To read the rest of the 10 most common mistakes, click here.
To learn more about some of the tactics insurers use to deny claims and other mistakes to avoid, click here.
