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It depends who you ask! While insurers say that the system designed for people to manage their own claims, there’s little regulation to ensure unrepresented claimants aren’t mistreated. We’ve seen many clients struggle with the convoluted superannuation claims process, and complex legalese in their insurance policies. If you’re unable to work due to serious injury or illness, you probably want to focus on getting well and looking after your family – you don’t want to spend your time filling out complicated paperwork and providing evidence to support a superannuation insurance claim. he right lawyer can streamline the superannuation claims process, and make your life easier. But remember – not all lawyers are created equal. If you’re going to consult a lawyer, consult an insurance law expert. At Littles, that’s what we are. This blog highlights some of the key ways that we help clients every day claim what they are entitled to.
Across Australia, people are paying for TPD insurance through the hard-earned money in their super funds. However, many of our clients are completely unaware they’re covered by insurance in their superannuation fund, let alone what they’re entitled to claim. Some are even able to claim against more than one insurance policy. If you want to know what you’re entitled to, Littles can perform a FREE super claims check – 1800 548 853 (LITTLES).
Superannuation claims are often rejected due to errors in the paperwork. A TPD insurance claim, for example, can require you to complete up to 30 pages of paperwork – and that’s before you provide all of your financial, health and employment history! And after doing all of this, insurers may use a single error – one that you may have made because you were stressed, or confused, or tired – to reject your claim. At Littles, we help complete the forms for our clients based on their instructions to ensure all the necessary information and evidence is accurate. This includes reading through the fine print and legalese in your insurance policy, pushing back on unreasonable requests for further information or documentation and preparing evidence to ensure you have the strongest possible claim.
It’s reasonable for super funds and insurers to ask you to provide them with certain information or documentation to support your claim. However, they often go to far. This can include
· asking claimants to undergo independent medical examinations from doctors with specialisations that don’t match their illness or injury. This can affect the accuracy of the doctor’s report and potentially lead to your claim being rejected
· ‘doctor shopping’, where insurers send claimants to two doctors with the same specialty so that they can choose the opinion that gives them the evidence they need to deny liability for a claim.
Using medical examinations in this way can be extremely distressing and confusing for claimants, and can amount to an abuse of process. Don’t let your insurer push you around. At Littles, we will fight for you, and protect you from these kinds of unreasonable and intrusive requests.
Despite what they might say, it’s not in the interest of insurers to make the claims process easy – just take a look at the fine print in your insurance policy! Despite the fact that you’ve likely been diligently paying your insurance premiums for many years through your hard-earned super, our clients frequently report that they came to us after becoming frustrated and upset by their insurer delaying their claim, using legalese, making unreasonable requests or even rejecting their claim based on a loophole or technicality. To get the right outcome our expert team of lawyers will sometimes advise the best course of action is to issue court proceedings in order to achieve a fair and reasonable outcome.
If you have an illness or injury that prevents you from working, you might be worrying about how you are going to pay your bills and put food on the table. You could be entitled to receive a TPD lump sum, as well as other insurance benefits. Get in touch with Littles for a free super claims check. We can help you understand what you’re entitled to. Know where you stand, and get peace of mind.
Not only do we offer a FREE claims check – we handle most insurance claims on a no win, no fee basis.
Our Head of TPD and General Insurance, Rowan McDonald, is an insurance law expert. If you think you might have a claim, get in touch with Rowan and his team for high quality legal advice.
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