A disabling illness or injury can strike at any time. People are injured in serious car accidents every day, and you never know if a routine wellness exam with your primary care doctor will reveal a serious issue. In San Francisco, 5.9% of the population under the age of 65 suffers from a disability.
Luckily, there are ways that you can protect yourself in the event that you find yourself unable to work. Employer-funded disability insurance policies (as well as those paid by the employee as part of a group plan benefit with the employer) may provide short-term disability benefits and long term disability benefits. You may also be eligible for Social Security Disability benefits, but only if your condition lasts, or is expected to last, 12 months or longer.
San Francisco Long Term Disability, ERISA, and Disability Insurance Claims
Our experienced team is ready to fight for the benefits you deserve. We offer a No Recovery, Zero Fee Guarantee, meaning we only get paid if you do. Our San Francisco long term disability lawyer can help you throughout the appeal process and will file a lawsuit if necessary:
- If you have been denied benefits, we can help prepare and file your administrative appeal with the insurance company in an effort to maximize the chances that your LTD claim will be approved.
- If your benefits have been cut-off or terminated, we can help prepare the appeal to have your benefits reinstated.
- If you have exhausted your administrative appeals with the insurance company, we may be able to file a lawsuit against the insurance company.
- Our firm does not typically handle short term disability cases. However, if your short term disability benefits have been denied and you have long term disability coverage that may be impacted then we may be able to assist you with that claim as well.
- If you have been offered a lump sum settlement offer, we can help you evaluate the fairness of the offer and possibly negotiate for a higher settlement amount.
We’re familiar with the tricks and sneaky tactics that the insurance company will use to delay and deny your claim. They’ll delay the process by requesting duplicate or unnecessary documents, ask you to participate in tricky phone interviews, and conduct video surveillance. Let us handle the communications with the insurance company instead so you can focus on your recovery (and we’ve got helpful tips for dealing with surveillance, too).
Ortiz Law Firm Represents San Francisco Long Term Disability Claimants
Our office is located in Pensacola, Florida, but Nick Ortiz can represent people anywhere in the country. He has a bar law license in the state of California, so he can represent claimants at any bar in the state of California.
In terms of communicating with you, we use an electronic signature service for a lot of the correspondence, and then we e-mail and fax and communicate by phone, so everything can be done by mail, fax, and e-mail.
Most long term disability cases (not all, but most) are governed by a federal regulation called ERISA. Under ERISA, you do not have the right to a jury trial, and in most cases, you do not have the right to engage in extensive discovery. At the end of the day, that means most of the work in a file is paper-driven, involving a lot of brief writing and a lot of correspondence by mail.
San Francisco Courts, Government, and Department of Insurance Information
Northern District of California | United States District Court
Courts of Appeal – DCA – California Courts
Official government website for the State of California
California Department of Insurance
Northern District of California Case Summaries
Federal Court: Insurance Company Had No Reason to Doubt Claimant’s Credibility
Subjective Proof Versus Objective Proof of Condition That Causes Pain
Doctor’s Conclusion Outweighs Subjective Complaints
Plaintiff is Entitled to a Description of Additional Material Necessary to Perfect the Claim
Modest Activity Captured on Surveillance Doesn’t Equal an Ability to Work
Court Rules Plaintiff Has Established That He Was Disabled
Court Rules Plaintiff’s Records Support a Finding of Disability
San Francisco Social Security Disability Claims
Ortiz Law Firm is now accepting Social Security Disability claims in San Francisco. During the initial application and Request for Reconsideration stages of a claim, we’re able to communicate with the Social Security Administration via their website, phone, fax, and mail. As for hearings before an Administrative Law Judge, the Social Security Administration recently announced that they will be conducting hearings over teleconference using the Microsoft Teams platform, so you and your representative will not have to appear at the local hearing office.
San Francisco SSA Locations and Resources
Directions to the local Social Security Administration Office
Schedule a Free Case Evaluation with a San Francisco Disability Lawyer
The long and short of it is this: you should not allow our geographic location to limit your contacting us to see what we can do to help you. We handle long term disability, ERISA, disability insurance, and Social Security Disability claims. If you suffer from an illness or injury and are unable to work, then please give us a call right away at (888) 321-8131 to discuss your legal rights. We evaluate each unique case on a case-by-case basis and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss your legal rights with you.