Personal injury law is a field which contains a myriad of provisions as well as terms which are going to cause quite a lot of confusion to the unexperienced reader. This is especially true when it comes to insurance. There is one particular term that’s called “offset”. A lot of people tend to get that mistaken, so we’ve taken the liberty of explaining it in the context of long-term disability claims and the way it’s likely to impact them.
You may not be aware that there are quite a lot of insurance policies which would contain provisions that enable the insurer to severely reduce the amount that you get as your monthly benefit if you have received a compensation or benefits for certain sources. These sources are referred to as “offsets”. There are a few examples that might make matters a bit clearer and they include:
• Earnings or payments that you will be getting from your employer
• Income that you get from being self-employed
• The CPP (Canada Pension Plan) Disability Benefits
• WSIB benefits or other benefits which are rather similar
In the wide majority of cases, the insurer is going to reduce the LTD benefit by the overall full amount that you are getting from an offset. However, there are certain policies where the wording might be different and, for instance, they would only allow them to take a pre-determined percentage of the CPP and the associated benefits.
There are certain situations, however, in which benefits might not be deducted from the LTD benefit that you are claiming. For instance, if you were actually receiving a WSIB benefit for a disability but it was from another employer for another disability that you’ve been enduring before you filed your current case, the insurer can’t consider this as an offset. What is more, it should also be allegedly noted that there are some policies which would allow your insurer to use CPP disability benefits and Child Benefits which are received from them.In any case, if you are on the verge of filing a long-term disability claim, it would be of serious benefit to you to get in touch with a personal injury lawyer. He will be able to handle the situation in the most comprehensive and effective manner which would get you the biggest amount of compensation.
Attempting to handle these issues on your own is something that you should refrain from. Chances are that you will get tangled in the confusion as this is no simple matter. It takes a lot of knowledge and, quite frankly, experience to handle a long-term disability claim in the way that would deliver you the highest compensation.