Can You Collect Long-Term Disability with Social Security Disability in Michigan?
Getting Every Form of Support Open to You
If you take advantage of every form of relief available, you can find a path forward when serious health problems push you out of work and threaten your financial stability.
You potentially could receive benefits from two different kinds of disability insurance:
- Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which is a government-run disability program.
- Long-term disability insurance (LTD), which you get through private insurance companies.
People often ask: Can you get both at the same time?
The answer is yes.
But when you get both, one type of financial assistance can have an affect on the other.
A disability attorney from Levine Benjamin Law Firm can help you understand your rights and options—and help you reach a more secure place in your life.
Levine Benjamin has been helping people in Toledo, Traverse City and across Michigan and Ohio since 1964.
Keep reading to learn more about qualifying for SSDI and LTD at the same time.
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What’s the Difference Between SSDI & LTD Benefits?
How you qualify for benefits—and how much the benefits pay—are different between Social Security Disability and long-term disability:
Social Security Disability
- Anyone who worked and paid enough into the Social Security system through every paycheck is covered. You don’t have to opt into it.
- The size of your monthly disability checks are based on a formula including your income when you worked, but they’re limited to a maximum amount (around $3,000 in recent years).
- The wait to get benefits can be long, especially when you need to appeal a denial , which most people do.
- SSDI lasts as long as you’re unable to work, until you qualify for retirement benefits.
Long-Term Disability
- You’re covered by LTD if you were enrolled in a policy at work, or if you bought individual disability insurance. You’re not automatically covered like SSDI.
- Long-term disability insurance probably pays more than you’ll get from SSDI: 50% to 75% of your income for a workplace plan and possibly more for an individual plan.
- You typically can start receiving benefits faster than with SSDI.
- LTD benefits can last until you reach retirement, or for a set period of years.
The two types of plans have some things in common, too.
They both require you to have an impairment preventing you from working for an extended period according to the doctors treating you.
For Social Security Disability, you must be unable to work in either your past job or any other job. Some long-term disability policies are the same way, but some will award benefits, at least for a period of time, if you’re only unable to function in your own job.
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What Happens When You Get Both Social Security Disability and Long-Term Disability?
How you qualify for benefits—and how much the benefits pay—are different between Social Security Disability and long-term disability:
The Influence of LTD on SSDI:
Your Social Security Disability benefits are not affected by long-term disability benefits.
If you receive another publicly funded type of disability income, like workers’ compensation benefits, your SSDI payments could be reduced to offset some of what you get from workers’ comp.
But because LTD is private, not a government program, Social Security doesn’t factor it into your benefits.
The Influence of SSDI on LTD:
But your long-term disability payments will likely be reduced to offset what you’re getting from Social Security.
Many long-term disability policies require you to apply for Social Security Disability.
The long-term disability insurance company may award benefits faster, but after you get through the lengthy Social Security Disability process and start receiving government benefits, the private company will reduce its payments by the amount you get from SSDI.
- Be careful: For help getting SSD benefits, the LTD insurance company might send you to an out-of-state company with advocates who are not attorneys. We recommend working with a local, fully licensed disability attorney. You don’t have to choose the representative chosen by a private insurance company.
The disability lawyers at Levine Benjamin can help you get all the benefits you’re entitled to receive, from both Social Security and long-term disability insurance companies.
And we can look at your individual situation and let you know how your benefits will work together.
You can start by getting a FREE EVALUATION OF YOUR DISABILITY CLAIMS.