A claimant who argued her post-traumatic stress disorder was separate from an earlier anxiety and depression diagnosis has lost her bid for a higher total and permanent disability benefit.

The woman obtained a TPD policy in October 2016 under her superannuation fund, and gained one unit of cover worth $26,200 from January 2017.

In April 2017 she requested the cover be increased to $200,000.

She lodged a claim in May 2019, having stopped work on January 18 2017 following a diagnosis of anxiety and depression.

TAL Life paid out $26,200, using January 18 2017 as the date of disablement, but the woman told the Australian Financial Complaints Authority she should be paid $200,000.

In ruling against her, the ombudsman says that at TAL’s correctly determined date of disablement, the benefit was $26,200.

In April 2017, the woman’s GP certified she had anxiety and depression caused by workplace bullying and could not retrain for alternative employment.

That May, a psychiatrist diagnosed PTSD as a new condition.

In claiming $200,000, the woman pointed to the May diagnosis, saying it was a new and separate condition caused by her workplace experiences.

Her condition had progressed beyond anxiety and depression, and PTSD had not been present or diagnosed when she first saw her GP in January 2017, she argued.

But the ombudsman says the PTSD was a deterioration of her claimed condition, rather than a separate issue.

“Even if the PTSD was a separate condition, the medical evidence does not establish that it solely rendered her unable to work. Rather, at best, the medical evidence shows she is unable to work due to a combination of depression, anxiety and PTSD,” the authority said.

Because the woman stopped working on January 18 2017, no workplace trauma occurred in May 2017, AFCA finds.

Read the ruling here.