Own Occupation & Any Occupation In Long Term Disability Insurance
The Misunderstood ‘own occupation’ & ‘any occupation’ definitions in Long Term Disability Insurance policies.
Own occupation is typically defined in most insurance contracts as your job as it appears in the national economy. So if your particular job has a feature in it that most other, for example real estate brokers, if you’re a real estate broker but you have a 50 pound lift every week then you’re not going to be like every other real estate broker. So ‘own occupation’ represents how real estate brokers do their job across the united states.
The own occupation premise is supported by a few pieces of information. One is the definition of occupational titles (which is not really a very good piece of data because it’s too old and hasn’t been updated in a comprehensive way). The other way to look at the own occupations scenario is to consult something called O*NET (or the occupational network online). This gives you a better feature of what the job, or what the occupation is typically consisting of.
‘Any occupation’ is a different standard. Most of the time insurance policies in long term disability talk about the idea of ‘any occupation’ and what that can mean is particular to the insurance contract. Any occupation typically means anything that you would be able to do by virtue of your education, training and experience. So when you think of ‘any occupation’, think of all of the jobs in the national economy. When you’re up against that standard, it’s really important to prove that you’re unable to do even the simplest of work. Like sedentary work.