For many years now, I have been writing articles regarding the various degrees of worry and fear that seems to emotionally affect nearly all insureds receiving disability claims.
This phenomenon begins when access to productive income ends, escalates to the point of genuine fear and worry about every aspect of the claims management process, ending only when the dependence on other sources of income stops. I coined the title, “Disability Claim Syndrome” or DCS, to describe the emotional worry that actually creates a secondary disability of emotional turmoil on a daily basis.
In this respect, nearly every insured is co-morbidly impaired, first by the primary and secondary physical/mental claimed disabilities, but is also compounded by behaviors resulting from worry that is not alleviated until the insured does something to make him/her “feel better.”
Spending more than an hour a day thinking about your disability claim is obsessive, and often creates patterns of thought that become habits. In other words, it eventually feels normal to be worried, crying, spending sleepless nights, checking the Internet ten times a day, and spending countless hours researching and reading what others have to say about their claims. In fact, it often becomes the norm to spend more time obsessing about disability claims than time spent trying to get well.
One characteristic of Disability Claim Syndrome is the absolute obsession about one particular aspect of the claim. Many insureds spend hours reading and re-reading their contracts or Plans, looking for something to challenge and focus on. Another individual focuses on “deadlines”, for example, completely worried that a deadline falling on a holiday weekend won’t be met. Despite the fact that being “scared to death” of consequences of not meeting a Saturday deadline is sheer foolishness, some individuals forget that no one inside any insurance company is physically there to receive and process mail on a holiday weekend anyway.
Still, another person who worked as a financial analyst computes and recomputes his COLA, worried that a truncation, or rounding of figures shorts him on future benefits. If it were not this issue, he would find some other reason to keep his contract on his desk to constantly review, and find errors.
Others process their worry and fear by stressing out when they don’t hear or receive letters from the insurance company on a regular basis. It’s as though getting a reassuring letter every month is necessary in order to bring peace of mind to continuing benefits. In reality, the opposite is true. “No news is good news” is a truthful insurance statement and prompting responses from claims handlers is not always a good idea. Calling claims handlers on a frequent basis might be reassuring, but it’s a bad move. Frequent contact with insurers is on the list of “red flags.”
Although the creation of insurance website portals was intended to facilitate emails and exchanges of paperwork, it can actually provide insureds with another source of obsession. Over the years I’ve discovered that even clients visit the website portal as many as ten times a day in order to reassure themselves claims are secure. The truth is that many website portals are NOT kept up to date, and have tracking software associated with them – also not a great idea. However, some insureds can’t feel safe unless they continually check the website portal.
Disability Claim Syndrome also manifests itself with physical symptoms. Claimant receives a check, feels reassured, but tensions mount over the next thirty days, including stomach cramps, sleeplessness, increased anxiety, hands shaking, preoccupation etc. until the next check arrives, when the process begins again. Often, insureds will leave insurance mail unopened, fearing what may be inside.
This is all part of the DCS cycle that grossly disturbs the quality of life insureds have while receiving disability benefits. I’ve asked myself on several occasions why insureds, even clients on occasion, engage in claim self-destruction when they know its not the right thing to do, such as speaking with reps on the phone, or visiting a website portal. The answer is quite simple:contacting, calling, going to the portal, writing long letters etc. is the only thing that calms the nerves and brings peace to the process. Nothing short of actual, direct, contact with the insurance company will take away the emotional turmoil of having a claim.
Although I’ve written so many articles about this, it seems apparent that DCS, or having an emotional secondary disability while on claim, may be the result of an cultural reaction to dependence on financial support not under one’s control. It does help, though, to understand why you’re feeling what you do, and attempt to find ways to stop, or at least to curb the obsession.
I want to be clear about the fact the Disability Claim Syndrome is not a “bad” thing unless it reaches obsession. Relying on money from a third-party IS stressful, but reactions to that stress are enacted in many different ways, often destructive.
It is hoped that insureds receiving benefits can find ways to find peace with their claims, and can live calmly without allowing all of the above to become normal and obsessive behavior.
