As a technology professional, your mind is rapidly and continually working, while your hands race across the keyboard. You must remain focused for long hours at a time. However, when memory lapses interrupt your troubleshooting or your wrists ache too much to type leading up to a critical deadline, the skills you built your career on can seem to evaporate.
If you paid into a long-term disability policy through your employer, you have every reason to expect it to work for you when your health interferes with your job. Too often, insurers see a claim from a technology worker and assume the job is “just deskwork,” discounting the cognitive demands, fine motor precision, and sustained concentration your role actually requires. That assumption leads to denials that leave qualified claimants without the income they earned.
Bartolic Law is a Chicago-based firm built around one focus: turning long-term disability denials into payments. We handle ERISA-governed claims, appeals, and litigation for professionals across every industry, including technology workers. In fact, we have spent years learning exactly how insurers evaluate technology occupations and where they get things wrong.
Our approach rejects the volume-based model many disability firms rely on. We build an individualized strategy that focuses on the facts of your specific case and the real demands of your occupation instead of trying to squeeze every case into a one-size-fits-all format.
We strive to understand how the symptoms you’re feeling impact the physical and cognitive requirements of your technology role, whether you write code, manage networks, provide IT support, or lead technical teams. We have represented network engineers, IT support professionals, and other technology workers whose insurers underestimated what the job actually requires, and we know how to set the record straight.
Technology workers come to us in a range of circumstances, including:
If you’ve found yourself in any of these situations and your insurer denied or terminated your claim, you’re not alone. You have options.
The process for every long-term disability claim generally follows the same steps, although the details of your policy and occupation directly impact the strategy employed at each stage.
Understanding your policy’s definition of disability. Nearly all group long-term disability policies start with an “own occupation” definition, before shifting to an “any occupation” standard after a set period, often 24 months. For technology workers, this shift is where many claims run into trouble. Insurers frequently argue that if you can perform some sedentary work, you can perform “any occupation,” without accounting for the cognitive precision, fine motor demands, or sustained concentration your specific technology role requires.
Reviewing 24-month limitations on certain conditions. Many policies cap benefits at 24 months for conditions insurers classify as self-reported or mental-health related, including some chronic pain conditions, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and even traumatic brain injuries mislabeled as mental health issues. If your condition falls into one of these categories, do not wait until benefits are set to expire. Once the insurer applies a limitation, you need to challenge it right away, or you risk forfeiting benefits beyond that period.
Addressing pre-existing condition exclusions. Group policies often define pre-existing conditions broadly. They’re aimed at covering any condition you had symptoms of or were treated for in the months leading up to the beginning of coverage, even if you never received a formal diagnosis. This exclusion is particularly important for the technology industry, where turnover can run rampant. New hires may not yet have 12 months of coverage when symptoms first appear. We have successfully argued that these exclusions do not apply when the claimant and their doctors had no reasonable way to connect early symptoms to the disabling condition.
Compiling the evidence your claim needs. We gather medical records, opinions from treating physicians, and occupation-specific evaluations, combining them with a clear explanation of how your symptoms map onto the actual requirements of your technology job. Where useful, we also present photo or video evidence showing how your condition affects your daily function.
Appealing or litigating when necessary. ERISA claims come with strict, short deadlines for appeal, often the only opportunity to submit evidence a court will later review. We build your appeal like a trial record, aiming for resolution within 90 days.
Your technical skills took years to build, and a denial should not be the final word on the benefits you earned. Bartolic Law has the occupation-specific knowledge and litigation record to challenge insurers who misunderstand what your technology job actually requires. Schedule your case evaluation today.
Not necessarily. “Sedentary” does not mean “any sedentary job automatically qualifies you.” Your specific technology occupation may require fine motor precision, sustained screen time, or complex cognitive processing that your condition prevents, even if you can technically sit at a desk. We regularly challenge insurers who make this oversimplified argument.
Do not accept that determination without a fight. Insurers often misclassify conditions like traumatic brain injury or chronic pain as mental health issues to trigger a shorter benefit period. We have successfully shown that a claimant remains disabled even when mental health symptoms are set aside entirely, preserving benefits beyond the limitation.
Yes. Insurers sometimes point to good days as evidence you are not disabled, but unpredictable symptoms can themselves be disabling if they prevent the reliable attendance and consistent performance your job requires. We build claims around this reality rather than around isolated snapshots of function.
It might, depending on your policy and treatment history. However, exclusions are not automatic. If you and your doctors could not have reasonably connected earlier symptoms to your current disabling condition, the exclusion may not apply. This comes up often in technology roles with high turnover and short coverage windows.
Not necessarily. However, many long-term disability policies require you to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance if you are approved for long-term disability, and some insurers offset your benefit by that amount. We can walk you through how this interacts with your specific policy.
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