Long Term and Short Term Disability
Many employed individuals purchase Individual Disability Insurance (DI) to protect themselves from financial disaster in the event of a disability that prevents them from working. Unlike workers compensation, DI supplements an individual's income in cases where his or her sickness or injury was not job related. For this reason, the ability to collect on a DI policy in the case of a long-term disability is extremely important for the average worker.
Why do I need a lawyer?
The primary focus of these companies is to make profits for its shareholders. As the number of claims increase, insurance companies face losses on these policies.
The insurance industry aggressively looks for ways out of paying these policies, and in some cases unlawfully denying many professionals money owed under their insurance policy.
Long-term disability law can be complex to prosecute, especially in cases where the wording of your own policy is unclear.
Insurance companies tend to seize upon any loophole they can find to deny your claim.
It is your responsibility when this happens to seek and retain aggressive counsel that can help you get the benefits you are owed.
Do I need a specialized lawyer?
A Long Term Disability Claim is much more than just a personal injury claim. Litigating a disability insurance case is different from litigating injuries resulting from an automobile accident or on-the job injuries in worker’s compensation claims.
The world of disability insurance litigation has its own body of case law, history, procedures, and terminology.
Before your case begins, your attorney must know what is needed to win your case.
If you want to have a shot at winning your case, you must find an experienced disability insurance attorney.
Why is our firm different?
Sims, Stakenborg & Henry, PA takes a more focused approach, offering each client exhaustive research and considerable support throughout the process.
We are proactive. We:
- Meet with your doctors when warranted
- When we win, we advise our clients what to do to keep it from happening again
- We consult with non testifying experts
Much of disability law turns on medical documentation and vocational specialists, and here our firm gives you extraordinary resources with which to wage and win litigation.
We subscribe to medical sites to determine the synergistic effects of your medication(s), which can often be more disabling than the condition itself.
We have resources, which give us up to the minute changes in diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.
We get daily alerts to update us daily on conditions we are investigating. We aren't just getting current, up to the minute, late breaking information; we are getting current, up to the second information.
For our clients, information available in articles published last year isn't good enough. We demand information up to 10 seconds ago...and we get it.
Our firm has close ties (our senior partner is CEO) with www.MDinaBox.com, a company created to help attorneys understand medicine better on behalf of their clients. That company trains doctors in developing nations to review reports by the opposing side's medical expert and help the attorney fashion questions.
In some cases, we even have these doctors with us online when we cross examine doctors on behalf of our clients. As of the time of this posting, we are the only law firm in the country with such ties who routinely use doctors in this fashion.
We have found that many of the defense experts’ only sources of income come from writing reports for insurance companies. We believe that this provides a strong incentive for them to write biased reports against you in favor of the insurance company. The result is that you unjustly lose the right to your disability benefits.
We consider this war, and use all the ammunition we can find. That includes hiring doctors to listen in and communicate with us privately while we cross examine the insurance company’s doctors. To see an example of this, log on to www.MDinaBox.com and click on the video link.
(Principal Office)
118 SW Fort King Street
Ocala, Florida
(352) 629-0480
(Satellite Office)
802-A N.W. 16th Avenue
Gainesville, Florida
(352) 337-0065
