Anxiety disorders can seriously impact your life and prevent you from continuing to work. Anxiety disorders are mental illnesses. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association the different types of anxiety disorders include:
Phobias – intense fear around a specific thing or situation
Panic Disorder – repeated feelings of intense fear that lasts for a short period of time
Agoraphobia – a fear of being in a situation where a person cannot escape. People may avoid public places or even leaving home.
Social Anxiety Disorder – involves intense fear of being embarrassed or judged by others
Generalized Anxiety Disorder – excessive worry around a number of everyday problems
OCD – unwanted thoughts or urges that cause anxiety or repeated actions
PTSD – reliving a traumatic event through nightmares, flashbacks and feeling unsafe
Long and short term disability insurance companies often deny disability claims that are based on symptoms of anxiety. They use such reasons as:
- There is insufficient medical evidence.
- You can do some other form of work.
- You aren’t seeing a specialist.
- You haven’t participated in the insurance company supervised rehab program.
- Your facebook page shows you are smiling.
If your claim for short term or long term disability benefits is terminated or denied you should retain a lawyer as soon as possible. You should avoid the unnecessary and biased insurance company internal appeal process. Your lawyer should obtain medical evidence from your treating doctors such as your family physician, specialists and therapists to support your claim. Your lawyer may send you to a specialist for a medical/legal opinion to demonstrate that you meet the test of disability as set out in your policy.
At Kotak Law our disability insurance lawyers have been successful in suing disability insurance companies and securing significant lump sum settlements for our clients who suffer from anxiety or other illnesses such as chronic pain, chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, colitis, IBS, cancer, crohns, heart disease, arthritis, migraines, or even stress alone.
