Social Security Disability Law: News and Facts

If you receive long-term disability insurance, your long-term disability insurance carrier will frequently make you apply for Social Security Disability. I frequently get calls asking about letters people have received from their insurance carriers threatening to cut off their benefits if they don’t apply for Social Security Disability. I  will explain how these policies typically work and what your rights are. In short, you should probably file for disability and you should definitely hire your own lawyer to help—not the insurance company’s “lawyer” or “advocate.” These “advocates” are disability mills and do not care about you, your family, or your case. They enter into contracts with insurance companies and do mass volume work. You won’t meet your “lawyer” until the day of the hearing and you’ll never speak to the same person twice (in fact, you’ll spend most of your time navigating phone menus and waiting “on hold”). When these companies lose your case, they’ll cut you loose an...

There are two types of disability: one is a private disability, and the other is Social Security Disability (SSD). Private disability is an option your employer may provide to you, although it is not required. You could also purchase your own private disability for short and/or long term disability. Generally, private disability includes both short-term (up to 3 months), and long-term (anywhere from two years to indefinite) disability benefits. The other type of disability is SSD insurance (SSDI). The SSDI program is a mandatory government insurance program set in place to help individuals with both monetary and health insurance benefits while they are out of work. This program differs from private disability in that you need to show you have been disabled for a 12-month time frame or you will be disabled for at least 12-months.  Also, you need to show that you are incapable of not only performing your past work, but also any other type of work in the national economy. You can appl...