QBE INSURANCE DIRTY TRICKS

[tallyho8]

So explain to me why I am wrong.
Later,
Dan

Because it is not 3 years, it is 5 years. Unfortunately, I learned this through experience.

My son, at age 40, became disabled 5 years ago. He had worked for 20 years as an electrical engineer and networking computers among other jobs. When he slowed down due to his illness they fired him and he lost his health insurance and was not able to see the right doctors to get diagnosed properly.

He applied for disability and was turned down on appeal after appeal because the doctors at the cheap clinics could not find out what was wrong with him and attributed it to laziness. It took 4 years to get to his final appeal. After 3 years the doctors finally diagnosed him with primary progressive multiple sclerosis which is the worst kind. He is unable to even get out of bed many days and is unable to walk without assistance and can not speak well enough to argue his case.

When his final appeal came up 4 years later they ruled against him denying him his 4 years of back pay. They stated that although he could prove he is completely disabled with multiple sclerosis now that he could not prove he had it 4 years ago when he applied for disability.

He was able to reapply for disability and they approved him rather quickly just before the 5 year deadline.

Of course I had been providing financial assistance to his family for these 4 1/2 years out of my retirement fund hoping to get paid back after he got his 4 years of back pay which he never got so my retirement fund is much smaller now.

Trying not to sound political, it is awful hard to believe how our government treats people who are hard honest workers all their lives, faithfully paying into social security and then if they become completely disabled, making them jump through hoops that they are not capable of jumping through in order to get their disability.

Yes my son should have saved more but it is few people who have enough saved to supplement 4 or 5 years of lost income and he was completely bankrupted and today has nothing except a meager monthly check that will never provide for his family's future. I just hope I leave enough when I die to pay for my grandsons college.

[coffeeman]

Because it is not 3 years, it is 5 years. Unfortunately, I learned this through experience.

My son, at age 40, became disabled 5 years ago. He had worked for 20 years as an electrical engineer and networking computers among other jobs. When he slowed down due to his illness they fired him and he lost his health insurance and was not able to see the right doctors to get diagnosed properly.

He applied for disability and was turned down on appeal after appeal because the doctors at the cheap clinics could not find out what was wrong with him and attributed it to laziness. It took 4 years to get to his final appeal. After 3 years the doctors finally diagnosed him with primary progressive multiple sclerosis which is the worst kind. He is unable to even get out of bed many days and is unable to walk without assistance and can not speak well enough to argue his case.

When his final appeal came up 4 years later they ruled against him denying him his 4 years of back pay. They stated that although he could prove he is completely disabled with multiple sclerosis now that he could not prove he had it 4 years ago when he applied for disability.

He was able to reapply for disability and they approved him rather quickly just before the 5 year deadline.

Of course I had been providing financial assistance to his family for these 4 1/2 years out of my retirement fund hoping to get paid back after he got his 4 years of back pay which he never got so my retirement fund is much smaller now.

Trying not to sound political, it is awful hard to believe how our government treats people who are hard honest workers all their lives, faithfully paying into social security and then if they become completely disabled, making them jump through hoops that they are not capable of jumping through in order to get their disability.

Yes my son should have saved more but it is few people who have enough saved to supplement 4 or 5 years of lost income and he was completely bankrupted and today has nothing except a meager monthly check that will never provide for his family's future. I just hope I leave enough when I die to pay for my grandsons college.

Many wonder why some folks "lawyer up" at the get go. As much as we like to make jokes about them, the end result is we need lawers to protect us from tyranny.

Cheers Coffeeman

[dmccarty]

Because it is not 3 years, it is 5 years. Unfortunately, I learned this through experience.

My son, at age 40, became disabled 5 years ago. He had worked for 20 years as an electrical engineer and networking computers among other jobs. When he slowed down due to his illness they fired him and he lost his health insurance and was not able to see the right doctors to get diagnosed properly.

In your sons case he was in a different age group. Depending on the age group you can loose the benefit in three years. From the SS website, "For example, if you become disabled at age 27, you would need credit for 3 years of work (12 credits) out of the past 6 years (between ages 21 and 27)." There are three age groups, the one just mentioned and one for people under the age of 24 and for people over 31.

Your son's case seems like he was in the 31+ age group, "Age 31 or older--In general, you need to have the number of work credits shown in the chart below. Unless you are blind, you must have earned at least 20 of the credits in the 10 years immediately before you became disabled."

The "In general" statement worries me a bit.....

The point of my post was to show that one can loose one's disability benefits in the US. And one can. I think that will shock people. It sure shocked me.

Let me give people some free advice learned the hard way.

If you are sick and you cannot get diagnosed correctly with your local doctor, get to a hospital that is at a teaching University that has a good reputation. They are certainly not perfect but you will have a much better chance than with other doctors. My family is constantly at the doctors for one thing or another. At this point we basically go to Duke and UNC.

One thing they constantly put on the table is that if we have problem's paying there are programs to help. I don't know how good those programs are since we thankfully have not had to use them but they are there.

Later,
Dan

[tallyho8]

If you are sick and you cannot get diagnosed correctly with your local doctor, get to a hospital that is at a teaching University that has a good reputation. They are certainly not perfect but you will have a much better chance than with other doctors. My family is constantly at the doctors for one thing or another. At this point we basically go to Duke and UNC.

One thing they constantly put on the table is that if we have problem's paying there are programs to help. I don't know how good those programs are since we thankfully have not had to use them but they are there.

Later,
Dan

The worst part about it was my son got sick right before Katrina. He started going to teaching University doctors who couldn't diagnose his problem before Katrina. After Katrina, half the hospitals in southeast Louisiana were shut down and the other half too crowded to handle anything except emergencies for years.

With all the problems we had after Katrina and as busy as we are were doing repairs, plus the financial bind, it was impossible to try to go to out-of state-hospitals. Even today our major hospitals in New Orleans are still shut down and not rebuilt yet.

Three years after Katrina, they had to schedule his cat-scan 6 months in advance to diagnose his illness.

I know everyone is tired of hearing about Katrina and how bad it was after, but believe me, I lived through Betsy, Camille and many other major hurricanes and none of them had even 1% of the cataclysmic aftereffects that we suffered after 2005.

[dave1949]

Tallyho8 & Dan, Your posts have been real eye openers and informative. Thanks for sharing.
Dave.

[nap61]

Iron horse,
There is a large legal difference between income and profit. In the U.S. there are various governmental agencies that regulate insurance companies. I am sure that there is at least one agency which has oversight in your case. "Keep on trucking". If you run into the brick wall, get a lawyer (Solisitor/Barrister).

Norm

[nap61]

Tallyho,
The difference between Betsy, Camille, and the other hurricanes we endured in S.E. Louisiana and Katrina is that those hurricanes "only" devastated portions of the community. There was resources left to support and rebuild the effected areas. Katrina wiped out the entire city and surrounding Parishes.

Norm

[zman007007]

this kind of thing really irks me, especially when you hear things like Michelle Obama, throwing parties at the white house and taking her friends all over the world at tax payers expense. when was she elected to anything espec. at tax payers expense? the money spent on the stupid things like that could help lots of families that deserve it more, such as the Katrina families. There I have vented, but still dont feel any better. zman

[Iron Horse]

Iron horse,
There is a large legal difference between income and profit.

Norm

That is the second time Ive heard that , it is only with your post it has stuck . I did in fact insure my income , I'm sure the policy is for income . So why are they talking about profit ?

Is it just to confuse a layperson who drives a tractor for a living for a reason ?

On edit , no mention of Profit in their booklet .

[smstonypoint]

There is a large legal difference between income and profit.

It's more than just a legal difference -- in Economics 101 we learn that firms try to maximize profits [total revenue less total costs] rather than total revenue (gross income).

Steve