When Denied Disability Insurance Means Living in Your Car

July 30, 2013, 2:00PM. By Gordon Gibb

Sacramento, CAPeople carry disability insurance for a reason. If they become disabled through no fault of their own and qualify, then California Insurance Law dictates that policyholders are due their benefits. And yet many suffer the indignity and hardship of denied disability insurance when an insurer acts in bad faith. Worse, is when the federal Social Security disability program that a worker pays into for years turns its back on a deserving claimant.

According to a feature report in the Sacramento Bee (7/21/13), judges in the region of Sacramento approved disability awards in about 62 percent of the cases heard in the current fiscal year. That suggests just under 40 percent of claimants are denied ERISA disability. And that’s in Sacramento. Apparently, the national numbers when extrapolated across the entire country are worse.

According to David Allen, an advocate for individuals with disabilities who commented in the Sacramento Bee (7/26/13) in response to the feature report, most people who apply for disability are long-term disability denied. “What’s more, only about 40 percent are ever awarded benefits,” he writes. “Many beneficiaries are terminally ill; about 1 in 5 male and 1 in 6 female beneficiaries die within five years of receiving benefits.

“Literally every day, I see people with significant disabilities who have been denied benefits.”

Jacqueline Winkley Merritt, an attorney and advocate for the disabled, concurs. Writing in the Sacramento Bee (7/26/13), Winkley Merritt shares that “this week, a client passed away while waiting on a second hearing. Her case was denied by an administrative law judge,” she writes. “We appealed. Eighteen months later, her case was remanded stating the judge made errors of law and fact. Unfortunately, that claimant will never have her second hearing.”

She says many of her clients who come to her with a denied disability insurance claim have paid into the Social Security disability system their entire lives. And yet, “they lose their homes, cars and other worldly possessions. These are people with disabilities who desperately need health care but get minimal care from county programs.”

Carroll Jones-Price is 56, and for the past several months has been reduced to living in her car with her small dog, Spirit. At one time Jones-Price was a working professional, with four degrees and an excellent employment history. “I achieved the American dream at least twice in my life,” she told the Sacramento Bee in an interview.

That all changed after an alleged assault in the workplace in 2001, resulting in a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) a year later. The California woman also suffers from lupus. Jones-Price hung on, living on her savings until the money ran out and she lost her home. Thus, for the past several months she has been living in her car.

According to the long-term denied disability report, Jones-Price finally saw her disability claim approved earlier this year, and with money saved, she was hoping to finally be in an apartment later this summer. But it took five years just to get her disability claim started.

Under California Insurance Law, is five years too long? Advocates continue to see individuals with significant disabilities having to suffer the indignity and panic of California insurance claim denied.

Little wonder, given that the majority of disability claims are turned down and an appeal can take months if not years, many will turn to a California denied disability insurance lawyer for California insurance claim help.