The Council for Disability Awareness (CDA) reports an increase in the number of American wage earners seeking and obtaining long-term disability payments, with the top reason for long-term disability continuing to be musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders, like back pain, joint and muscle disorders.
Other primary issues include cancer, the second leading cause of all new claims, and cardiovascular and circulatory problems like heart disease and strokes.
The CDA’s 2008 Long-Term Disability Claims Review looked at private and public long-term disability claims data and identified on-going and emerging disability trends among workers in the United States. Fifteen CDA member companies, accounting for more than 75% of the commercial disability insurance marketplace, submitted proprietary claim data for inclusion in the study.
The Claims Review reported member companies made approximately $8 billion in continuing disability insurance payments to disabled individuals in 2008, with an approval 156,000 new individuals for long-term disability insurance benefits. In addition to private payouts, applications for the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program increased in 2008.
SSDI benefit applications grew nearly 6% to 2.3 million in 2008 — the largest ever.
The program paid 7.4 million disabled workers a total of $91.3 billion in 2008 — a 4.6% jump over payments made the previous year and more than double the $43.5 billion provided in payments to SSDI program beneficiaries a decade ago. The approval rate for SSDI claims dropped to 38% in 2008, representing a continued steady decrease from 1998’s 52% approval rate.
The CDA Claims Review discovered 30% of individuals obtaining private long-term disability insurance benefits were not eligible for SSDI assistance and 95% of claims were not job-related.
According to the Claims Review’s qualitative data, member representatives reported there were no major effects on private disability claims resulting from the economic downturn of 2008. (workersxzcompxzkit)
Looking ahead, private insurers estimate a modest gain in claim applications while Social Security is already indicating it expects to receive approximately 3.3 million disability applications in fiscal 2010, up 27% from 2008 due to the recession. http://www.disabilitycanhappen.org/.
Author Robert Elliott, executive vice president, Amaxx Risks Solutions, Inc. has worked successfully for 20 years with many industries to reduce Workers’ Compensation costs, including airlines, health care, manufacturing, printing/publishing, pharmaceuticals, retail, hospitality and manufacturing and many other organizations, carriers and associations. He can be contacted at: [email protected] or 860-786-8286.
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