Examinations for Discovery / Long Term Disability
Disability discoveries turn on your ordinary day and the wording of your policy, and they are tested against surveillance more closely than any other kind of claim.
Reviewed August 2026Start here
This guide covers what is specific to a denied long term disability claim. For the process itself, including how long an examination lasts, who attends, undertakings and refusals, and the ten rules for giving evidence well, read our general guide to examinations for discovery in Ontario first.
Clients arrive expecting to prove they are unwell. That is not quite the question. A disability claim turns on whether you meet the definition of disability written into your policy, and those definitions do specific work.
Most group policies begin with an own occupation test, asking whether you can perform the essential duties of your own job. After a defined period, commonly two years, the test usually changes to something closer to any occupation, asking whether you can perform any work you are reasonably suited to by education, training or experience. Expect questioning aimed squarely at whichever test applies to you, including detailed questions about what your job actually involved and what other work you might be capable of.
The question is not how unwell you are. It is what the policy says, and whether you meet it.
This is the longest and most uncomfortable part of a disability discovery. You will be walked through an ordinary day from waking to sleeping. When you get up. Whether you drive, and how far. Groceries, cooking, laundry, banking. Childcare and pet care. Screen time, reading, hobbies. Whether you have travelled, and what you did there. Whether you attend appointments alone.
Answer in ranges rather than absolutes, because absolutes are what get contradicted. If your capacity varies, say so at the outset and keep saying it: some days you manage the groceries and pay for it the next day. That is a normal and credible account of fluctuating illness. What is not credible is a witness who says they never leave the house and is then shown doing so.
Disability insurers use surveillance more heavily than almost any other kind of defendant, and they use it precisely because activity evidence is the most effective way to test a claim built on symptoms. Assume video exists. Assume your public posts have been printed.
Surveillance is usually short. It captures an hour of a good day and shows nothing of the three days that follow. The way to deal with it is not to minimize your function but to describe it accurately, including the cost of doing things. Never delete social media content once a claim is underway, and see our guide to surveillance and social media during your claim.
Expect close questioning about every practitioner you have seen, how often, what was recommended, what you followed, what you declined, and any period where treatment stopped.
Gaps are common and usually have ordinary explanations: cost, waiting lists, a practitioner retiring, a treatment that was not helping, side effects you could not tolerate. Insurers frequently argue that a gap shows either recovery or a failure to mitigate. Give the real reason rather than glossing over it, and be straightforward about anything you chose not to do and why.
You will be asked whether you have tried to return to work, whether modified duties were offered, whether you looked for other work, and whether you have received income from anywhere: employment insurance, CPP disability, a pension, a spouse's business, casual work, or another policy.
Most policies offset other income, so this is partly arithmetic. It is also credibility. Undisclosed income of any kind is far more damaging than the amount ever justifies.
The insurer's claim file is produced: adjuster notes, internal medical consultant reviews, the reasoning behind the denial, and every form you and your doctors submitted.
Much of the questioning consists of putting those documents to you and asking about differences. Your own words on an early form, or a treating doctor's optimistic note about returning to work, will be read back. Where a form does not match how things actually were, explain the difference plainly rather than disowning the document.
Many disability claims rest on chronic pain, fatigue, cognitive symptoms or mental health conditions, where there is no imaging that settles the question. Those claims succeed in Ontario, but they are tested harder, and the testing runs through consistency: between what you told your doctors, what you wrote on the forms, what you say at discovery, and how you actually live.
That scrutiny is not a comment on whether your condition is real. It is a feature of how these cases are litigated, and the response to it is the same as everywhere else in this guide. Be accurate, be consistent, and do not overstate. Overstatement is the most common self-inflicted wound in disability litigation.
Davidson Cahill Morrison LLP
Our lawyers prepare clients for discovery in denied disability claims across Ontario. If you are facing an examination, we are glad to answer your questions.
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