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Common Mistakes When Filing Disability Insurance Claims

By Edward E. Wallace Published on June 24, 2011

Most professionals today have disability insurance, and most people assume that filing a claim would be easy if they were to ever become disabled in an accident. Unfortunately,  Edward E. Wallace, ESQ. says that filing a successful disability claim can actually be more difficult than most people realize.

As an insurance litigation attorney in Encino, California, Wallace says that disability claims can be fairly complicated because the way that a person files his claim depends on what the terms of his policy are and what he was doing when he became injured.

For the most part, Wallace says that people tend to think that filing a claim on their disability insurance policy will involve nothing more than filling out some paperwork and gathering their medical records. More often than not, the notes that physicians write do not reflect all of the information that the insurance company needs in order to establish the policyholder has the condition he is claiming to have; or that this condition will impede his ability to perform principle aspects of his job.

With that in mind, Wallace says it is helpful to hire an insurance litigation attorney from the beginning. It is always easier to file a claim correctly and have it approved on the first time around than to refile a claim and hope that the initial denial gets overturned.

An insurance litigation attorney will review his client’s policy and explain to the client’s doctor what is required in order to get the disability claim approved. Attorneys who handle these types of cases on a daily basis are able to develop a rapport with the doctors they work with regularly to ensure that the notes the doctors write are complete in terms of what the insurance company needs in order to approve a claim.

With disability insurance claims, there is a significant amount of money at stake. Because of that, Wallace is an insurance litigation attorney who recommends that injured policyholders get in contact with an attorney to help them prepare their claims, as opposed to waiting to contact an attorney until after their claims have already been denied.

Although an attorney can appeal an insurance company’s decision, it is always better to put together all the correct information and present it to the insurance company on the first go around. People who are filing claims against their disability policies should not give their insurance companies any reason to say no, since getting a decision reversed it always harder than getting it approved to begin with.

*Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on this article as a legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances, and you should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Publication of this article and your receipt of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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