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Many long term disability claims are won or lost based on how your insurance company defines your occupation. An insurer may agree that you have a serious medical condition but still deny benefits if it believes you can continue performing the duties of your occupation.
One of the most common problems we see is that insurance companies oversimplify what our clients actually do for a living. A surgeon may be evaluated as a generic physician. A trial attorney may be evaluated as a generic lawyer. A CEO may be evaluated as a generic manager. These distinctions matter because long term disability benefits often depend on whether you can perform the material duties of the specific occupation you were performing when you became disabled.
Most disability insurance policies use an "own occupation" definition of disability for at least part of the claim period. Under this definition, your insurance company must evaluate the actual duties of your occupation rather than merely your job title. For many professionals, executives, and specialists, a proper occupational analysis can be critical to obtaining and maintaining benefits.
Disputes about occupational duties frequently arise in disability claims. Insurance companies often rely on generic occupational descriptions or fail to consider specialized responsibilities, leadership duties, travel requirements, cognitive demands, or fine motor skills. In these situations, vocational evidence may be necessary to establish the true demands of your occupation and demonstrate why your medical condition prevents you from performing them.
If you are a professional or executive seeking disability benefits, you may find our Long Term Disability FAQ for Professionals and Executives helpful. You can also learn more about how occupational and vocational assessments are used to evaluate occupational duties in long term disability claims.
Below, you can learn more about the occupational demands and disability considerations associated with a variety of medical, financial, executive, professional, technical, and academic occupations.
