I am 53 and have a mediation coming up with Manulife LTD.
They stopped my benefits after two years saying I was ready to return to work. I wasn’t and have since been terminated and recieved a settlement from my former employer. I have been approved for CPP-D, HOOPP, DTC. What should I expect from this meeting? Will they claw back any offer because of my HOOPP pension?
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I don’t know anything but Resolute Legal did publish a Manulife guide this summer: Manulife Long-Term Disability: The Online Guide for 2022 - Resolute Legal Disability Lawyers
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Your LTD contract will dictate which pensions Manulife can claw back amounts for. Your lawyer should easily be able to tell you this.
If you have a standard-ish LTD policy you likely have 12 years of benefits left. If I were you I wouldn’t settle for anything less than 8 years worth of payments plus legal fees.
I personally know of two people who recently settled (with other LTD insurers) and they landed in the range of 70% to 85% of the value owing (after contractually allowed clawbacks to age 65) plus ALL legal fees and commissions. Both of these people were 100% ready to go to court as there were so many mistakes by the insurance company, and the insurance company knew they’d get absolutely slaughtered by a judge or jury.
Good luck.
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If you aren’t experienced in negotiating and haven’t hired a lawyer for the mediation you might want to look into that.
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Thank you for the advice.
That is very encouraging, I’ll be honest I’m nervous!
Thank you, yes I do.
Not sure if you have attended the mediation yet, but what to expect will be different depending on the context of the mediation. For example, mediations are very different depending on whether your case is happening in the context of civil litigation vs in context of collective agreement grievance process. The purpose of the mediation is to resolve the appeal either by negotiating a full or partial approval of benefits or by agreeing to a one time lump sum settlement. The offsets will depend on the wording of your LTD plan – typically CPP and HOOP pension will be deductible, but you will need to verify for your specific situation. You should bring up these concerns and questions with your lawyer (if civil litigation) or your representative (if union grievance). Good luck!
David Brannen
Disability Lawyer with Resolute Legal
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