Peony Proves She Cannot Work

Robin Mead

If you are applying for disability through your employer, there are two types of disability policies. “Own Occupation” and “Any Occupation.”

You’ll need to read your policy to figure out which one you have.

If it is “Any Occupation” – you must prove you cannot do any kind of job in the country!

If it is “Own Occupation” you just need to prove that you can’t do your current job anymore.

Here’s some tips from Peony on how she showed she could no longer do her previous job.

PEONY’S TIPS

🌸 Get very detailed including how much you sit, stand, and the heaviest things you have to lift for your job.

🌸 Include anything out of the ordinary. In my case this, included working in cleanrooms in bunny suits, bio-chem labs in lab coats and gloves and laser labs in goggles.

🌸 Remember the people reading your application are office staff and won’t necessarily have any idea of what you actually do on a day-to-day basis in your job. Heck, my own Human Resources department had no idea my job was so physically demanding. They told the insurance company that I sat at a computer all day and didn’t lift over 25lbs. Get detailed!

🌸 Give a detailed description of how the illness impacts your ability to do your job. In my case, I can’t use a wheelchair in a cleanroom or bio-chem lab. The shakes I get would be dangerous in any of these labs. I can’t walk or stand or reach or crawl all of which I need to do to perform my job as an engineering assistant.

🌸 I also decided to include letters of recommendation that had been written before I became sick — I never thought I would end up using them for disability. I included them to show I was a good employee and good at what I did before becoming ill. (Note: Be sure to clearly mark on the letter that this was dated before your illness, so they do not accidentally think you are still able to do these things).

LEARN MORE

🌸 Poeny not only did a great job with her work history report, she did a great job with her whole application. And she got approved for Social Security in seven months without any appeals! To top it all off, she won her LTD case as well. Here’s how she did it: How Peony Won Her Case Despite “Normal” Test Results