Whether it be the Hartford, Unum, Cigna, Prudential, all of the different insurance companies who are considering these claims and write these insurance policies, the best piece of evidence that you can have for a long term disability claim is objective testing. Now, does every policy require objective testing? No. Does that mean that the insurance company might ask you to provide insurance objective testing? Yeah. Some insurance companies might require you to give them objective evidence of your disability.
So, what is objective evidence?
Well, it could be an MRI showing spinal canal narrowing and stenosis and pressure on X nerve. Or it could be a brain scan that shows damage to the frontal lobe of your brain. It could be a functional capacity evaluation, or it could be neuro-psychological testing. All of those are considered objective tests. So you get this objective piece of evidence and what does it say? Then how does your doctor interpret it? So the question that you have to answer is, what is the best way for me to prove to the insurance company, the skeptical insurance company, that I am disabled? The best way is to provide objective evidence, along with your subjective complaints, that proves that you actually have this medical condition, and that you actually cannot work. Your doctor’s opinion should be based on this objective evidence.
Is this used for every case?
Every case does not require objective evidence. There are some medical conditions out there that it’s impossible to verify with “objective evidence”. So what do you do? You have to get your doctor’s opinion, and you’ve got to get your doctor to document every single thing. Think about depression. How do you objectively measure depression? You can’t. It’s based on subjective symptoms. But there are certain tests that the doctors can give that will measure the extent of your depression. The consistency of those tests is key. So if you have the ability to get those testings done, do it, and then be upfront and frank with your doctor about what information you need. That is the best evidence that you can submit to the insurance company for your disability.
Hope this video has been helpful. If you have any questions, give me a comment in the comment section below, or send me an email. Happy to talk to you.
