What's your experience with STD?

kdspa

Hi Everyone,

We currently don't offer short-term disability (STD) insurance to our employees but are considering it. Our insurance agent says that STD claims are frequently denied by the insurance carrier, even when they appear legitimate to the agent, supervisor and HR department. She also says that the turn-around time on checks is slow, taking 3-4 weeks at best for employees to get their check after making a claim.

Have you experienced the same things with STD, or do you have a different (sunnier?) perspective?

Thanks!

cnghr

That certainly hasn't been our experience with our short-term disability insurance. The only time (in 20 years of working with it) I've seen a claim denied was when they found out the doctor had said that the surgery he'd done was the result of a worker's comp injury, in which case it needed to be filed as a worker's comp claim.

As for turnaround time, it seems like the checks generally go out quite soon after the claim is filed and I've never had people complain that they didn't get their checks timely.

NaeNae55

I think it depends on your plan. I know of a group who decided on a self-funded plan and wrote it poorly. They allowed pregnancy, no waiting period, and no pre-existing conditions. Plus, they offerred it cheap. It was a pretty large company and the plan had tremendous losses as soon word got out and every pregnant employee signed up as soon as she was about 6 months along and then dropped it when she went back to work.

Your problem is that your insurance agent is not well versed in STD and/or has few companies to go with. Shop around, but make sure you check out both the plan and the company thoroughly.

cnghr

[quote=NaeNae55;717627] It was a pretty large company and the plan had tremendous losses as soon word got out and every pregnant employee signed up as soon as she was about 6 months along and then dropped it when she went back to work.[/quote]

I agree with you that it definitely depends on the kind of plan you have and how it is written. Our plan does cover pregnancy, but since the STD insurance is offered as a part of our overall health package which is a premium-only Section 125 plan, employees cannot just sign up for it and then drop it again whenever they feel like it, they have to wait for the annual open enrollment period to do either one. We haven't had any problems with pregnant employees going on it just to collect the STD checks and then dropping it after they come back to work. Our STD weekly benefit is fairly low, and since they have to be on our medical plan in order to sign up for the STD insurance, it isn't worth it to them to pay the insurance premiums for an entire year for the amount of money they could collect on STD.

Dutch2

Yep... it depends on your provider. We have had STD for several years and to my knowledge have not experienced any problems. There are all sorts of variations out there, ours does not start paying until the ee has been off work for 30 days.

ACU Frank

I wish all my benefits worked as smoothly as my STD/LTD plans.

Which raises the question: What's your insurance agent's motive? He's obviously trying to steer you in a certain direction through misinformation.

Still Need Coffee

I've always had great success with STD plans, and so far, our employees haven't complained about service or speediness of the checks. Ours is wholly paid by the employee on a post-tax basis, so it can be dropped/added at any time. We include a 3 mo pre-ex period for which resulting claims will not be approved, but the 3 months can be mitigated by proof of prior STD plan. Ours pays after 14 days.

As the other posters said, I think it all depends on whether you have a reputable company for your STD policy.