Legalese Defined: Social Security Disability– Date Last Insured

In social security disability cases, your “date last insured” is the date you were last eligible for social security disability benefits.

Generally, In order to be eligible for social security disability you must have worked 5 of the last 10 years. Put another way, that means that over the course of the last ten years, you must have been employed a total of 20 quarters (with each year having four quarters). So, for the past ten years, you could have worked on and off, for a few months at a time, and still be eligible for benefits so long as the time you worked adds up to 5 years.

In order to determine your date last insured, the Social Security Administration will look back at the ten years before the date you filed your application (this is called the “Look Back Period”). Your date last insured is the date at which you last met the 5 of the last 10 year criteria. So if you were steadily employed for the last 20 years and then stopped working five years ago, your date last insured would be today. If you stopped working two years ago, your date last insured would be three years from now. If you stopped working seven years ago, your date last insured would be two years ago.

If you would like more information regarding Social Security Disability visit our website to read our common SSD questions or contact us.