“At Work” criteria when claiming for TPD or Income Protection

Many insurance policies attached to your superannuation will have eligibility requirements before you are covered for total and permanent disablement (TPD) or income protection.  In order to make a TPD claim you need to be covered by insurance at the time that you suffer your disability. Quite often the criteria for eligibility are that you are ‘at work’ at the time the policy commenced or sometimes even when you suffer your disability.

What is not commonly known is that being ‘at work’ is not always as it sounds.  Quite often a policy of insurance will define ‘at work’ as including a period after the end of your last employment.  Sometimes this period can be up to 12 months or longer.

At work can also include engaging in full time domestic duties. Full time domestic duties will often been defined to simply mean your usual domestic duties.

The At Work criteria will often determine what level of coverage you have.  If you were not “At Work” at the time the TPD or income protection insurance policy commenced then you may be told that you do not qualify or that you only have limited TPD or income protection cover.  Limited cover often excludes conditions which existed prior to the insurance policy commencing.

What you may not be told though is that you will usually meet the at work criteria if at any time after the TPD or income protection policy commenced you had one day at work performing your normal duties without restriction from injury or illness and you were not in receipt of any income replacement benefits such as Centrelink.

It pays to ensure that you check with an expert as to the definition for common terms used by the super funds and the insurers to ensure that your TPD or income protection claim is not stopped at the first hurdle.  A misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the meaning of terms used in the policy can mean you don’t receive lump sum benefits worth tens of thousands of dollars or monthly income replacement in your time of need.

How can Super Claims Australia help you?

If you had a TPD claim rejected or if you are unsure of what you can do in your situation, give Super Claims Australia a call on 1800 088 677 or via our online contact form for an obligation free consultation.