Total and Permanent Disability Claims for Depression

Total and permanent disability (TPD) claims can be made against your superannuation fund due to an injury or illness that has left you unable to return to work. Psychological/mental illnesses and conditions are within the scope of TPD claims as well as physical ones, if they prevent you from being employed in your usual occupation.

Depression is among the most common mental illnesses experienced by many people at some point in their lives. Not every depression case can be considered a permanent disability, however, since depression can take many forms and emerge in different levels of seriousness. More severe versions of depression are generally diagnosed as major depression, psychotic depression and bipolar disorder. In order to be able to make a TPD claim for your depressive illness, you usually must be able to provide medical evidence by way of a medical report documenting its severity to the extent of preventing you from returning to work.

Before proceeding to make a TPD claim for depression, you should inquire into the details of your superannuation policy to see what exactly is covered and what other evidence you may need to provide. Each policy has different requirements and different definitions of how they categorise TPD. Checking your policy requirements will help you identify the grounds on which your claim can be refused.

What TPD benefits can you get for depression?

The most expected result from a TPD claim is a single lump sum payment that will assist you monetarily given your inability to return to work. The amount of lump sum payment will usually depend on your superfund, age and the scope of your policy. However, TPD payouts typically range between $50,000 and $350,000. However, we have seen some TPD policies be up to $2,000,000.

How can you make a TPD claim for depression?

Make sure you understand what your insurance policy covers you for by contacting your superannuation fund. Your policy will detail whether or not your policy allows for TPD, the eligibility requirements for making a TPD claim including their definition of TPD and when that TPD had to have occurred. Our TPD lawyers will be able to do that on your behalf and be able to assist you in understanding your policy and advising you on what is required in order to make a TPD claim. You will need medical evidence to support that although you have depression, to what extent, that depression has affected your ability to return to work. Our TPD lawyers will work on your behalf to provide evidence of your situation through medical reports, details of your occupation, payrolls, and other relevant documents explaining why you will not be able to perform your usual job due to your depression. Each superfund has its own prescribed forms that are required to complete to make a TPD claim as it depends on each superfunds policy.

Why your claim could be refused

The specific reasons your claim for depression could be refused will depend on the scope of your policy, but some common reasons may be lack of sufficient evidence, inactive or invalid policy, failure to comply with work history requirements, and inability to meet the disability definition of your policy. We recommend you contact our TPD lawyers who can advise you on whether or not it has reasonable prospects of your TPD claim being approved prior to lodging your TPD paperwork.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I hire a lawyer for depression TPD claim?

Our TPD Lawyers work on a no win no fee basis, meaning you only pay for our TPD Lawyers legal fees if you receive a lump sum payment. That means if you do not receive a lump sum payment you will not be liable for our legal costs. Our TPD Lawyers can assess the requirements of your superannuation policy without you having to worry about meeting the requirements and navigating through policies and definitions and guide you to achieve the best payout in the shortest possible time. Also, you can get insight from our TPD lawyers about how to move forward if your claim was rejected by your insurer or superfund.

How long does it take to receive compensation for TPD depression claims?

After you lodge your TPD claim with all the necessary documents, your insurer will likely decide on your case in no more than 3 months. However, the issues lie in the fact that your insurer or superfund may not have had enough documents or information to make a decision which can result in significant delay. The lack of information could be from you or could be from doctors or third parties. Failure to provide all the required documents may lengthen the decision process beyond this time limit. Our TPD Lawyers work hard to ensure your insurer or superfund have all the documents they require in order to make a decision in the shortest possible time. If they do require documents our TPD lawyers will investigate the reason behind it, notify you and keep you updated and informed.

TPD Claim Lawyers for depression

Our experienced TPD claim lawyers have conveniently located offices in Sydney, Parramatta, Penrith, Liverpool and Wollongong and can help you at any point in your TPD claim process. We can assess your situation in the best manner and guide you to achieve the best payout from your TPD claim. We remind you that we work on a no win no fee basis, meaning you will not pay our legal costs unless your claim is approved and you receive a payment. Our TPD Lawyers will also pay for associated costs such as medical reports and third-party documents that are required to support making your TPD claim upfront. We will only recover them from you from your lump sum payment upon being approved by the insurer or superfund. That means you will not be out of pocket for the entirety of the TPD process until your claim is approved and you receive the lump sum payment.