People Getting Virginia Disability Benefits are Under the Microscope

If you have applied for disability benefits in Virginia, you might be in for a shock. As the economy continues to put financial strains on companies, they are cutting back on disability coverage for workers, leaving employees to foot the bill. For those employers who still offer it, workers are being highly scrutinized when they actually use the insurance. As an injured worker filing a Virginia disability claim, this is news you don’t want to hear.

Disability insurance is designed to provide income to people who are too sick or injured to work. Many companies offered disability insurance as part of their workplace benefits packages, until recently.

An article in the March 2010 issue of Smart Money, “Too Sick to Work? They Disagree,” provided some eye-opening statistics about the current state of disability insurance. The article reports that in 2001, 81 percent of employers picked up the entire cost of short-term disability insurance, but today, this number is down to 45 percent.

This dip in disability coverage does not come at an ideal time, as more of the working population continues to age. There is also a higher rate of disability benefits claims when the economy slows down. The Council for Disability Awareness, a trade group of private insurers, anticipates that 2010 will show an increase in disability claims.

Workers who are offered disability coverage still face a difficult battle, as they are basically put under a microscope. According to the Smart Money article, “critics say, insurers today are more likely to require hour-long chats on the phone, hound patients for medical updates and push them back to work as soon as possible – often clashing with doctors who think the workers need more recovery time.” If you are a disabled worker in Virginia, don’t expect to be treated any differently.

This higher scrutiny within the disability insurance industry is making it a lot tougher on workers than they could ever have imagined. The disability claims process is now much more complicated and grueling, not to mention stressful. Erin Moaratty, a project officer with the Patient Advocate Foundation, says, “It really catches people off guard. They think, ‘If I get sick, at least I’ve got this plan.’ That’s not the way it works.”

This situation is unfortunate for disabled workers. If you are having trouble obtaining Virginia long-term disability benefits, you need to get a copy of Fairfax Disability Insurance Attorney Ben Glass’s book, Robbery Without a Gun. It’s a book that you don’t want to miss if you are making a disability claim.

For additional information, click on this link for access to a free sample chapter of Ben's book, The Five Deadly Sins That Can Wreck Your Injury Claim.

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