From a press release:
The 2010 Long-Term Disability Claims Review, conducted by the Council for Disability Awareness (CDA) [an organization of companies involved in writing or administering long term disability or LTD policies mostly as part of employee benefits plans], reveals that CDA member companies paid more than $8 billion in ongoing disability insurance payments to individuals during 2009. ...Note that insurance companies, which are notoriously tight fisted when it comes to paying LTD, are vastly more likely to approve a disability claim than the Social Security Administration. Note also that these insurance companies are saying that it has become more difficult to get LTD recipients on Social Security disability benefits. These insurance companies are concerned with getting their LTD recipients on Social Security disability since they reduce the LTD benefits by Social Security disability benefits.
Despite the record number of people receiving disability payments, the 2010 CDA Claims Review reports that roughly 100 million workers have no private income protection insurance. In addition to the decline in the number of insured, fewer employers provided group long-term disability programs in 2009.New claim applications submitted to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program continued to surge in 2009. More workers are applying for SSDI claim payments than at any time in history, with new applications totaling 2.8 million in 2009 — an increase of 21 percent, and by far the most ever. New SSDI claims are projected to continue to rise dramatically in 2010. Over 5 percent of the workforce, or 7.8 million workers, were receiving SSDI at the conclusion of 2009.
At the same time, the approval rate for initial SSDI claims continued to decline. The approval rate fell to 35 percent in 2009, representing a continued steady decline from 52 percent 10 years ago. The CDA Claims Review found that 31 percent of individuals receiving private group long-term disability insurance benefits did not qualify for SSDI assistance ...
For a copy of The 2010 Long-Term Disability Claims Review, please visit http://www.disabilitycanhappen.org. ...
3 comments:
As a T2 cr I certainly don't get anywhere near 35% approvals of initial claims for dib. I would like to know the breakout of approval percentages in initial, recon, and hearing cases. Any idea where I could see that info?
The present economy is leaving some people behind who can work, but cannot get a job (due to lots of competition). That would explain the denial rate going up at this time.
Also, LTD policies may have very different standards for paying disability.
SSA desparately needs to revise its regulations regarding LTD payments. These payments should be offset from the T2 benefits much like Workers Comp, rather than the reverse. One wonders whether the insurance companies would be so hot to force their beneficiaries to file for T2 and to represent them if they were not so motivated by their bottom line.
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