Social Security Disability Benefits (SSD) are reduced by Worker's Compensation (WC) payments. If a disabled individual is receiving both SSD and WC, SSD monthly payments cannot be more than 80 percent of the money that the beneficiary got paid during full time employment. This is commonly referred to as "the worker's comp offset".
Social Security Administration employees who process payments are trained to look for possible worker's comp offsets. If they find any evidence that there ever were any worker's comp payments made to a claimant, they will stop the payment process until the claimant produces paperwork itemizing all worker's comp payments. Please be aware that it does not matter how long ago these payments were made or the amount of money involved. You must assume that SSA field office employees will not process your payment if they don't get a clear explanation of the money that you got in worker's comp. This situation has become a real nightmare for many claimants in Connecticut and Massachusetts who desperately need their monthly Social Security Disability check, right away.
My advise to all the readers of this blog is that no one should wait until a disability case is won to start looking for worker's comp paperwork. In fact, it is highly advisable to obtain this information during the initial application stage. Once an application is filed, a claimant who has received WC benefits should contact the insurance carrier who issued the benefits and request a full print out of all the payments. Also, it is important to obtain copies of any WC settlement that describes any lump sum payments made to you. It is might be a good idea to request this information from the lawyer who handled the comp case.
Once this information is gathered, the claimant or his or her lawyer should submit it to the field office with a cover letter explaining that information provided contains the total figures of the amounts of worker's compensation benefits received.
