I received a call from a captain friend of mine who asked if I’d speak to another captain, who is out on long term disability, but is being “forced” to retire. Since my situation was slightly different, I wasn’t sure of what help I could be, but in the hopes of providing some helpful information to that guy, I said “sure.”
I called the LTD captain and we spent perhaps an hour on the phone. Mostly I listened, as I was told this interesting story. I’ll start at the beginning (of our conversation) of what I can remember, and go until the end. This issue probably doesn’t affect you, but if you know someone who is on long term disability and approaching age 60, you might pass this story along.
This captain had been out for just over 10 years, and at the beginning of September, turned 60 years old. For those of you lucky enough to not know much about long term disability, your disability check comes only once a month, and it’s not a normal FedEx check, but one that comes via Aetna Insurance, which is the company that administers the LTD program.
As well, as is FedEx's right, you will be asked to apply for Social Security disability, which, if approved, will provide you monies that will be deducted from your “FedEx LTD check.” So if your LTD check was (let’s say) $6000 a month, and your Social Security disability was approved, providing you (let’s say) $1000 a month, the check you would receive from Aetna would be $6300. The contract of 2006 allows the company to reduce your LTD check by 70% of your Social Security disability check.
Anyway, the above was just for your information and is not really that much of an issue in this case. What is the issue is that this captain was called by Mercer, a division of Aetna, and told that they should not expect any more checks, because according to their records, “you have retired.” Needless to say it took the captain by surprise, because they had been told, in no uncertain terms, that they could stay on LTD until the month of their 65th birthday. Of course the captain relayed that information, only to be told that they needed to be talking to FedEx Retirement Center, because, after all, they were not FedEx. At this point the captain was totally confused, because: 1) they thought that the were talking to FedEx; and 2) after being out for over 10 years, had no phone numbers or names of anyone in Retirement Planning, or anywhere else at FedEx for that matter. It seems that in 10 years of being out, the captain had not received even one phone call from FedEx. In my 5 years of LTD, I too received not even one phone call from anyone in FedEx management.
To make matters worse, when finally contacted, FedEx Retirement Planning explained that it would take roughly 3 months before the first retirement check should be expected, and as for the interim 3 months, those monies would be paid out over the actuarial life expectancy of the captain. In other words, a few bucks each month until the full 3 months, roughly $20,000 is paid.
The issue here is that no one was looking out for this guy, and to make matters worse, because they were told they could stay to 65, they never did any planning, assuming they had another 5 years to go. What appears to be happening is that guys on LTD, over time, seem to fall through the cracks. So if you know someone in a similar situation, you might give them a heads-up. You must be your own advocate regarding LTD and retirement, because the company isn't always on top of it for you.
JJ