Residual Disability Benefits

[Hawkeye225]

Hopefully, this won't be a duplicate post.  I tried to post something similar but apparently didn't do so correctly.

I had to retire from my group practice as a partner due to health reasons and was on full disability for several months.  Due to the miracle of modern medicine, my problem was fixed and I have no work restrictions.

Though I'm no longer a partner, my group has hired me back as an employee and I work part time for them.  The group hired someone to replace me when I had to retire thus, there is no partnership available.  If I'm unable to make 80% of what I was making as a partner, would I qualify for residual disability benefits (typically there needs to be a loss of income of 20% or greater) or do I have to still have some disability that doesn't allow me to work as long or as frequently as I did before in order to qualify?

[DK Unger]

Good to see that you are back.

The residual disability benefit rider with the top policies do not require you to be currently disabled in order to qualify for a residual benefit.

Since you are not disabled any longer, any benefit payable under your situation would be via the "recovery benefit" provision of the residual disability benefit rider. You will have to demonstrate that your 15-20% (depending on your policy) loss of income is solely because of the prior injury/illness. The better policies will consider your prior income to be the highest 2 of the previous 3 years (adjusted for inflation).

This aspect of residual disability is sometimes overlooked. It takes a lot of time and effort to build a practice/income. One may recover medically, but never financially. Another reason why a residual disability benefit with a recovery benefit is critical.

[Hawkeye225]

DK Unger wrote:

Good to see that you are back.

The residual disability benefit rider with the top policies do not require you to be currently disabled in order to qualify for a residual benefit.

Since you are not disabled any longer, any benefit payable under your situation would be via the “recovery benefit” provision of the residual disability benefit rider. You will have to demonstrate that your 15-20% (depending on your policy) loss of income is solely because of the prior injury/illness. The better policies will consider your prior income to be the highest 2 of the previous 3 years (adjusted for inflation).

This aspect of residual disability is sometimes overlooked. It takes a lot of time and effort to build a practice/income. One may recover medically, but never financially. Another reason why a residual disability benefit is critical.

Click to expand...

Thanks DK.  The company (one of the big ones with own occupation) is telling me that because I no longer have any work restrictions due to health reasons that there is no residual disability benefit available.  Unfortunately, my group simply does not have full time work available for me though I have picked up some additional part time insurance related work that I do at home to help with the income.  Working part time as a clinical physician, there is a greater than 20% income loss (which is their threshold).  It's my understanding that the additional insurance work I'm doing isn't considered and they haven't made that an issue with me.

Am I interpreting this incorrectly?  What to do now?

[DK Unger]

If you don't mind disclosing, it would help to know which company and policy series you have. Based on what you are saying, if your policy has a recovery benefit provision, you should qualify for benefits.

It's possible that:

1. You bought a policy before recovery benefit provisions were introduced

2. You have a policy that does not have a recovery benefit built into the residual benefit rider (for instance, Principal in California offers a recovery benefit as a separate rider)

Hoping to help.

[Hawkeye225]

Message sent to you.  Thank you very much.

[Hawkeye225]

Another message sent to you.