Q: My husband was just awarded SSD benefits. Now, the company that was paying his LTD wants all their money back.
SSD - Social Security Disability, LTD - Long Term Disability. Is it legal for MetLife to make him pay back their money? This was insurance that he was paying for out of his paychecks, from his former employer.
A:
Most LTD policies contain an offset provision for Social Security benefits.
Before you receive your SSDI benefits, the LTD company is paying the full benefit amount. If SSA then awards backpay for months that you were already getting the full payment amount for LTD, you generally owe them the offset amount for those months.
Most of the time the SSD benefit is less than the full LTD amount, so you don't end up having to pay the entire SSD backpay amount to the LTD company.
The first thing you need to do is look at the LTD policy to see if there is an offset for SSD benefits. It most likely does have that provision. Then you need to figure out if the amount that they are requesting is correct, based on the terms in your policy. If you have difficulty doing this then you may need to find a lawyer who handles LTD cases and have them review the documents for you to determine if the LTD is asking for the correct amount.
Damon Miller agrees with this answer
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