LTD and CPPD consent to 3rd party advocate for CPPD. Company is DCAC. Any information is welcome

Disability Insurance
1

LTD wants to have signed consent to pursue CPPD on clients behalf…is this normal…?I thought it was the individual persons responsibility to apply for CPPD. CPPD was declined once now LTD says they will pursue it for client. LTD is with Desjardins. The form is a DCAC authorization form. This company will appeal on client and Desjardins behalf.

( DCAC will provide you with assistance, at no additional cost to you, in obtaining coverage through long term disability program under CPP)

I authorize and direct Desjardins insurance to release, disclosure and exchange information regarding my LTD claim with DCAD. Any thoughts on this issue? Thank you

2

Hi,

In this case you and the insurer have the same goal, to get you approved for CPPD (because then they can pay you less). I personally didn’t take my insurer’s offer of a consulting company, but that’s because I felt my CPPD claim was very strong with lots of objective data. Opinions will vary but in most cases I would probably accept the help on an appeal if they had acted decently enough that I trusted them to be honest and fair.

3

Thank you for responding I will pass the information onto my friend. She has had a good working relationship with her insurance company.

4

I think signing would depend on if CPPD is something that will be of financial benefit after the insurer offsets it from your LTD payment and you pay the additional tax on it. All the LTD contracts I’ve seen don’t require anyone to appeal a CPPD denial. There’s no legal requirement to sign this additional agreement, if you choose not to. They can’t end your LTD payments if you don’t sign it. If they did, they are setting themselves up for a huge lawsuit that they have no chance of winning.

In my situation, I’ve already told my insurer if I am denied CPPD (I should know any week now), then I won’t be appealing, and that ends any contractual obligation I have to apply for CPPD. If my LTD insurer were to ask me to sign a “permission to appeal on my behalf” contract then I would have them add a clause that if approved for CPPD on appeal the offset they they are contractually allowed to take will be reduced by 40% to compensate for the additional tax burden it creates.