How do you determine if a person is disabled?  You may feel that you can’t work anymore, and by that I mean you know you cannot show up at work every day and do what you were doing, be it a surgeon or someone who’s an administrator or someone who is behind a desk like this working on a computer each day.  You know if you can’t work anymore, but the standard that you go buy is what’s written in your insurance policy, and that’s where some people can get caught short.  

If you bought an insurance policy years ago like I did, it says if I can’t do the important duties of my occupation, I’m disabled.  Now, I’m a trial attorney, so I’ve got to go to court often and I meet with clients daily, and you can imagine what I do.  Well, if I can’t go to court anymore because something happens to me but I can still meet with my clients every day, am I disabled?  The insurance company’s going to consider, “Well, is an important duty of her occupation going to court?”  And if they conclude that it is, then I would be entitled to disability benefits.  

The same as surgeons.  Many physicians come to me and they say, “Well, I can’t perform surgery anymore or that type of surgery anymore because of something that happened to me.  Would this policy pay me benefits?”  Well, I look at the policy and the policy says, “Well, if you can’t do the material and substantial duties of your occupation, you’re entitled to benefits.”  And I think, “Well, an orthopedic surgeon by definition when you look at the words is a surgeon.”  If the orthopedist can’t do surgery, my way of thinking is he or she is disabled under the policy, and that means you don’t have to stop working.  You can continue to work in your occupation seeing patients in your office, but in some cases still qualify for total disability benefits.

A different type of case.  You’re a secretary at an office and you can go to work every day, but you have an injury to your hand and you have so much trouble typing and your computer skills just are going downhill, downhill.  Your employer is getting angry at you.  You can’t do those skills anymore.  Are you really a secretary anymore?  Well, probably not.  You may be an administrator.  You may be able to pick up pieces of paper, but you can’t do the important duties of your occupation.  You would become disabled.

So, being disabled in my world, which is disability policies, not Social Security, does not mean that you have to be a quadriplegic, God forbid, or unable to leave your room.  You just have to be unable to do the duties of your occupation.  That’s what defines disability.