My LTD claim was denied. What do I do first?
The three things to do in the first week after a denial: find your real deadline, request your full claim file, and start your evidence.
A denial letter for an employer group long-term disability (LTD) claim is not the end of the process. Almost every employer-sponsored group LTD plan is governed by ERISA, the federal law that requires your plan to offer an internal appeal before you can go to court, and that appeal is the most important step in the entire claim, not a formality on the way to a lawsuit.
The first thing to establish is your actual deadline. Federal regulation requires the plan to give you at least 180 days following your receipt of the denial notice to file the internal appeal, not 180 days from the date printed on the letter, and not a fixed number for every plan. Use the deadline calculator to get an early estimate from your letter date, then confirm the true date against when you actually received the letter and your plan's own document.
Second: request your complete claim file
You are entitled to a free copy of everything relevant to your claim, not only the documents the denial letter cites. See how to request your complete claim file. Do this immediately, since it can take the plan time to respond and you will need what it contains to know what to rebut.
Third: start building your evidence now, not later
Many courts limit a later lawsuit to the record that existed when the plan decided your internal appeal. That means the appeal, not a future court case, is generally your one real chance to add medical records, vocational evidence, and anything else that supports your claim. See what evidence to add to your appeal and why now.
Before you do any of this, it is worth checking one more thing: whether ERISA even applies to your plan. Government employer plans, church plans, and individually purchased policies generally are not ERISA plans and follow a different process. See is my plan even ERISA-governed and the self-assessment tool.