Mental-health LTD claims sure to spike due to COVID

By Paul Russell, LegalMatters Staff • The isolation and stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to an increase in disability claims due to mental health issues, predicts Toronto personal injury lawyer Joshua Goldberg.

“Mental health is going to be a huge issue in the future,” says Goldberg, principal of Joshua Goldberg Law.

“The reduction in person-to-person contact is a recipe for disaster in terms of our mental wellbeing, especially among the younger generation who are the most affected by feelings of isolation brought on by the pandemic,” he says.

As proof of that, Goldberg points to a RBC insurance poll that found close to 50 per cent of new long-term disability (LTD) claims “for younger employees are mental-health related.”

Nearly half of the 19 to 35-year-olds surveyed “indicated their benefits plan had not sufficiently addressed their health and wellness needs in the past year,” the survey adds.

Pandemic led to stress and isolation

“Companies should be taking steps now to deal with the stress and isolation their workers are feeling due to COVID,” Goldberg tells LegalMattersCanada.ca.

“This will be to their benefit. If they don’t address mental-health issues, they will pay in terms of losing experienced employees, and their health premiums will go up as more workers claim LTD benefits,” he says.

“Those two reasons should be enough for companies to act now to make sure staff members are taken care of,” Goldberg adds.

An RBC spokeswoman agrees. In a news release about the poll, she notes, “Younger workers in particular are re-evaluating their personal needs and taking more proactive steps to address their mental health concerns.”

 “It will be crucial for benefits providers and employers to keep up with the changing needs of a younger workforce,” she adds.

Less personal contact with remote technology

Goldberg says that while the technology ­– Zoom conferences, electronic signatures, more digital file exchanges – firms have used during the pandemic may have increased productivity and cut costs, it has also encouraged less personal contact.

That is shown in a study released by the Conference Board of Canada, which found that 84 per cent reported that their mental health had declined during the pandemic. The biggest concerns were family well-being, one’s future, isolation, loneliness and anxiety.

“Connecting with family and friends was consistently seen as the most-favoured coping strategy across respondent demographics,” the report states. “This suggests employers can have a positive impact on employees’ mental health by supporting employees and paying attention to the quality of social connections in the workplace.”

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The report suggests various ways employers can address the stress caused by COVID. The top two are:

• increase vigilance on employees’ psychological safety. Use a Plan-Do-Check-Act approach to promote psychological health and mitigate the impact of COVID-19; and
• evaluate all programs in place for prevention and early intervention/treatment and consider the benefits for supporting employees’ mental fitness and resiliency to promote two-way accountability.

“Sadly, there are a lot of bad employers who will not take steps to address mental-health issues,” says Goldberg.

He adds that employees for those firms will have no choice but to apply for LTD benefits when they are no longer able to work.

‘Insurance companies want objective proof’

“It is hard to predict how many people that will be, but experience shows that insurance companies don’t like claims that involve fibromyalgia (a condition that causes pain all over the body, sleep problems, fatigue and mental distress) or any form of mental illness,” Goldberg says.

“I have a client who was cut off his LTD because all his issues are psychological,” he says. “Insurance companies want objective proof, rather than subjective proof, when dealing with claims, but evidence of a psychological problem is always subjective. There’s no bright-line test that will prove without a doubt that you have a psychological issue.”

The public also has to be willing to adapt to the new technology brought in during the pandemic, Goldberg says, noting that was reinforced by a 2020 Superior Court decision that involved plaintiffs who objected to examinations by videoconference.

According to court documents, Justice Frederick Myers dismissed their concerns, noting: “In my view, the simplest answer to this issue is, ‘It’s 2020.’ We no longer record evidence using quill and ink. In fact, we apparently do not even teach children to use cursive writing in all schools anymore. We now have the technological ability to communicate remotely effectively. Using it is more efficient and far less costly than personal attendance. We should not be going back.”