Having a disability claim that supports a family is very difficult to live with. When working, people know that work equals pay, and as long as they work, they’ll get paid. Not so with disability claims since the insurance company has all the control and independently decides who gets paid and who doesn’t. Depending on any third-party for financial support where the institution has all the control is not easy to live with and causes clinical levels of anxiety, stress, and worry.
While the majority of insureds live with high levels of stress and can tolerate multiple requests for information, others struggle in their daily lives to control increasing levels of stress.
In most cases severe stress and anxiety can lead to a “secondary diagnosis” that makes dealing with physical health issues a lot harder. Secondary depression and anxiety should actually be diagnosed, but often is missed by treating physicians. Ignoring stress, anxiety, and depression adds to the severity of any disability claim because insureds learn to live sub-quality lifestyles while on disability, and their anxiety becomes normal to their way of life.
Although I’ve addressed the signs of “claim depression” on Lindanee’s Blog before, I think it’s a good time to go over it again.
First, insureds become extremely anxious when their checks are due to arrive either in the mail or bank. Insureds may experience stomach pains, nervousness, sleeplessness until they receive verification the monthly benefit has arrived. Then, they seem to do well until the next check is due and the cycle repeats itself.
Second, some insureds insist on checking the website portals as many 20 times a day. Even when I explain to them that the insurance portals are not up to date and contain tracking software, insureds cannot “feel better” without obsessively checking the portals to “make sure everything is OK.” Website portals are NOT kept up to date and checking the site has been taken by Unum, for example, to indicate work capacity. So while these insurers recommend the portal, it is also used against insureds.
Third, insureds may also frequently call the insurance company to ask questions they already know the answer to in order to be assured their claim is in pay status. This is so risky to do, and interestingly insurance companies view frequent calls as “red flags.”
Some insureds actually want to do the insurance company’s job for them by voluntarily offering to send in paperwork and update forms early. In their minds they want to be done with it so again they can feel better. I’m sure they don’t understand that by doing so, they are shortening update time periods and next updates will be sooner than expected. It doesn’t work. Insureds are NOT required to investigate their claims FOR the insurance company. But, a stressed out individual will do this thinking it betters their claim when in fact it makes it worse.
Continuing the above, many persons with claim anxiety want to keep rehashing old claim history with the claims handler. Long letters are written (extremely bad idea!) going over and over the same medical information explaining why the claim is credible.No one wants to hear “old news” and it doesn’t help a disability claim get paid. Insurance companies are interested in the future, not the past.
Stressed out insureds find it impossible to appreciate successes and peaceful claims. Insurer often send out letters indicating future approvals of claim, or various issues are resolved, or notifying that claims were underpaid. Insureds already used to the normalcy of anxiety find it hard to celebrate anticipated future claim peacefulness and will want to immediately start another battle, or “want more” to make them feel better.
Relationships within family units begins to crumble. The disabled spouse acts and speaks irrationally often to the point where he/she is removed from parental, financial, or household responsibility. It’s not the disability that destroys relationships among the support group, but the stress and anxiety that causes insureds to react in ways they never normally would.
Bottom line, stress and anxiety while on claim never ends – it becomes a normal part of a sub-quality of life insureds accept and learn to live with. Think about that for a moment. In addition to the claimed disability, insureds develop tolerances for clinically destructive stress and anxiety that then becomes normal. When there are claim successes, insureds find THOSE abnormal and feel uncomfortable “when nothing is wrong.”
Once insureds begin in the normalcy of agitated daily stress, it’s hard to talk them out of it with reassurance. Believe me, I’ve tried, and I occasionally have to deal with this. It’s OK to have a claim that is functioning normally, and it’s OK not to be stressed out about it.
The best solution to claim anxiety is to recognize what and why you are feeling the way you are. Why can’t you sleep at night a couple of days before your money is due? What can you do to make that better? How can you change your cycle of thinking? I can’t make a specific recommendation because everyone is different and people have differing thresholds for anxiety and stress.
What I do know is that identifying the stress, figuring out what specifically causes it, and making efforts to reprogram the catalysts of the stress, helps a great deal in preventing having to live a so-called normal life of stress and anxiety. Preventing the normalization of living with stress and anxiety while on claim is crucial. You deserve better than that, and no one has to settle for less while disabled.
I hope this article helps you. If you can identify yourself in some of the above discussion, then you now know you can change it. There are ways to deal with the uncertainty of disability claims other than stress and anxiety.
