by mrbensworld » Wed Sep 15, 2010 07:54 pm
My 17 year old son received backpay from SSDI. He was never listed as a dependent when my LTD claim was filed. Does my LTD insurance company have the right to take this money that was paid to him not me? He is 18 now and no longer receiving these benefits. I never received money for him, as a dependent, from my LTD insurer.
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 05:42 am Post Subject:
No. At age 65, your SSDI benefit will end. You will begin receiving SS Retirement benefits, which will probably be a bit lower.
Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 07:54 pm Post Subject: LTD company wants dependent retro pay
I have a LTD company that has been paying me and when i finally got SSDI they wanted all of that back pay as well as reduced my benefit, which i was ok with because they were helping me. However now they are saying that they want my kids backpay now to and that my check will be adjusted again for what the kids get. I talked to SS and they are saying they are not supposed to get any of your kids money not back pay and not monthly. i have already not gotten paid for them for months since I was approved for some offset thing however i do not understand because I gave them everything that I go from SS. Can they really take my kids money to?
Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 12:08 pm Post Subject:
It sounds highly irregular for the insurance company to demand repayment of any portion of your or your children's benefit other than any amount to which they are entitled through an "integration of benefits" provision in the contract that would allow them to reduce your benefit by the amount of your SSDI payment.
If your benefit does not include a separate benefit for your dependents (most policies do not), they are probably NOT entitled to recover any amount equivalent to what your dependents have received from Social Security as the result of your disability.
There may be a problem with the insurance company's interpretation of its policy that needs to be undone legally. See my personal email to you for more information.
[As a moderator of this forum, I also deleted your two prior duplicate posts as a guest because they were unnecessary.]
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 11:41 pm Post Subject: child benefit on my SSDI
I have asked this quite a few times on many different sites... My oldest is now almost 17 1/2 and my youngest is nearly 16 and I have just been approved for SSDI with a disability date of 3/2010.
My LTD policy states that they consider any payment on my record for myself, spouse and/or children income to me and they will reduce my LTD payments by this amount and any SSDI payments for the period I received LTD payments (back payment) will be considered an over payment and must be repaid.
I'm very confused because
1. some atty's say LTD has the right to deduct dep benefits, others say it is completely illegal
2. Social Security says that it is illegal for LTD to deduct child benefit amounts because these are not considered "my income" but are for the sole care of the child
3. Some attys say LTD has the right to dep back pay, others say they do not under any circumstance
4. Social security says dep back pay is absolutely not to be used to pay my debt to the LTD company because I will be asked to prove what I used it for and and my "over payment" debt is not considered care of the children
So, if SSA says this is not legal do I have to send the Dependent Lump Sum payment to my LTD company?
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:35 am Post Subject:
If your LTD benefit plan is an employer-sponsored plan under ERISA, they have wider latitude to write those kinds of things into the Summary Plan Document, because it evades the reach of state insurance laws.
If you would like to challenge the insurance company on this in court, I can probably find an attorney willing to look at the case for you. If it's an ERISA matter, there's no chance of a lawsuit until you've exhausted all of the prescribed "administrative" processes and appeals.
Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 02:19 pm Post Subject: Dependent Child Benefits
I live in North Carolina.
I had employer provided long term disability benefits when I became disabled in 2010. The LTD company said that I had to apply for SSDI for me to continue to receive LTD. I applied and was eventually able to receive SSDI in 2012. I had a dependent child from 2010 until her graduation from high school in 2012. I received back benefits from SSDI and that money was repaid to the LTD company. My child just received back benefits. Now the LTD company wants those monies returned as well. My daughter had to apply for those benefits on her own and they were deposited to her account (since she is an adult). My daughter called Social Security and was told she was NOT supposed to pay any monies received to the LTD company. The Social Security Admin quoted: 42 U.S.C. § 407 : US Code - Section 407: Assignment of benefits
I am at a loss. The money she received is almost gone to pay bills and college tuition for her.
What am I supposed to do? What are the laws? Does that money have to repaid? Will I lose my LTD?
Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 04:55 am Post Subject:
I am at a loss. The money she received is almost gone to pay bills and college tuition for her.
What am I supposed to do? What are the laws? Does that money have to repaid? Will I lose my LTD?
Social Security is right, and the LTD insurance company is probably right, too. Sound weird? It is.
And the problem starts with the likelihood that your employer's LTD plan is an ERISA-covered benefit plan, which kind of takes the matter in a different direction than what Social Security it telling you.
ERISA preempts almost all other laws -- one of the generally accepted unintended consequences of Congress' 1974 Act which they have chosen not to correct in almost 40 years. Because they have not acted, the courts look to the language of ERISA which states that the Summary Plan Description is the controlling document of a covered benefit plan. When the employer provides certain insurance benefits, the rules of the insurance contract or the plan governing the provision of benefits takes precedence over just about any other law known to mankind.
Employers are no more careful when it comes to reading the insurance contracts they purchase than any other individual. They tend not to see language that allows the insurance company to recover "all disability sources of income, including benefits paid to dependents." This is what allows the insurance company to claim the child's Social Security Disability dependent's benefit, even though the history of Social Security reveals that it was intended to assist the child directly.
Increasingly, the courts are siding with the insurance companies by ruling that the money paid to dependents is to be considered money paid to the "household" -- everyone's disability income, which is what exposes it to the insurance company's greedy little fingers. I don't know what set of arguments will be able to overcome this, but they may be out there somewhere.
The good/bad news is that if you don't have the money to repay the insurance company the windfall your child received, they will simply deduct if from your future DI benefit. The problem is that they may have the right to completely stop paying your benefit until the money has been repaid.
In the absence of a decision to try to be the case that overturns the courts' way of thinking, you can try to negotiate a resolution with the insurance company to take maybe only 50% of your income until the balance is erased. If it appears that you will live long enough to repay them, they should agree to that plan.
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