Some do and shouldn’t, some should but don’t

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People are funny about what they claim for. I recently did some digging into disability statistics and found some startling trends.

Wednesday, May 5th 2010, 5:28PM

by Russell Hutchinson

There has been, roughly, a quadrupling in the number of people claiming invalids and sickness benefits (both commonly used to provide assistance to the disabled) in the last 20 years.

Demographers, and anyone who is awake, will recall that during that time the population of New Zealand has risen by nowhere near as much.

Indeed, one report went on to state that "...many people on disability benefits do not regard themselves as having a disability, while, at the same time, many people classify themselves as severely disabled, do not work and receive no benefits..."

What? Really - disabled and not claiming? Yes: a report from the OECD that says roughly one in five people with a serious disability make no claim on welfare benefits at all.

Thinking about insurance, I am darned sure that we'll find similar stuff.

All those declined disability insurance (DI) claims that give underwriters such good anecdotes for dinner out are certainly proof of the former.

What's more, some of the public relations problems our industry suffers from probably stems from the confusion created by different definitions of disability.

Out of all the research I have come up with a new, informal, ranking of disability, in increasing order of severity:

• "Socially Disabled" used by the local branch of The Welfare who may find themselves tempted to reduce the official unemployment figures...
• "Medically Disabled" used by doctors, and varies a lot depending on how old they are and how Scottish - but as they may personally pay very little of the cost for adding to the disabled count, it tends to softness.
• "Insurer Disabled" through a combination of the original accident or illness, and the torture administered through the claims process, deemed by the insurer to be disabled.
• "Grandfather Disabled" which translates, to all intents and purposes, as "dead", as neither of my grandfathers would have admitted to being disabled unless all limbs had been severed and they could no longer speak - which accounts for all those people not claiming.

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