- Explaining long-term disability litigation

Hi everybody, Warren Whiteknight here. I’m a partner at Bergeron Clifford Injury Lawyers and today on ask an injury lawyer I’m going to talk a little bit about long-term disability disputes with disability insurers.

Oftentimes when people are injured or suffer a health complication, stress, chronic fatigue, accident related injuries they will have to go off of work and hopefully they have access to disability insurance. When that application is made unfortunately a disability insurer may deny the application. Now oftentimes an injury lawyer will become involved at that stage to try and help people prove entitlement to those those disability benefits.

Most disability policies function in a similar fashion although they are a contract and so they have to be analyzed very carefully on the specific wording. However, typically someone will need to prove entitlement for the first two years that they cannot do their own job or own occupation and after two years they need to prove that they can’t do any occupation. Either that they can be retrained for or that their prior experience or resume skills that they can do it often requires the expertise of qualified orthopedic surgeons or neuropsychologists psychologists occupational therapists to put together the information required to prove those claims.

Long-term disability disputes often interact as well with WSIP CPP disability or other sorts of insurance claims such as accident benefits through car accidents or tort claims for negligence. It is very typical that the lawyer you’re working with will need to work those claims and in tandem move them along in a careful fashion so that there’s no positive set offs for insurers. At that there are positive net benefits to the client in any long-term disability dispute.

If you have any questions about a long-term disability disputes or entitlements under a policy ask an injury lawyer.