How long term disability (LTD) benefits and SSDI (social security disability insurance) benefits interplay with each other?

In some situations, disabled individuals are able to receive long term disability (LTD) benefits through their former place of employment and are later approved for SSDI benefits. When this occurs, many (not all) LTD plans contain a coordination or offset provision within their plan.  When this occurs, the insurance company who provides the LTD benefit to the disabled individual will reduce or deduct the amount of SSDI benefits that individual is receiving from the LTD benefit.   In those situations, the LTD benefit will pay the differential LTD amount after this reduction. In some situations, the SSDI benefit is the same or more than the LTD benefit which then results in no LTD benefit being provided.  Additionally, if LTD benefits were provided before an individual is found to be entitled to SSDI benefits and accrued SSDI benefits are owing for the same months that LTD benefits were paid, a repayment obligation is triggered requiring the disabled individual to repay to the LTD insurance company those duplicative benefits.

In these types of situations, it is always recommended that one insists on a credit for any attorney fee that the individual incurs in obtaining their SSDI benefits from the repayment amounts owing to the LTD carrier.