Earning Capacity Assessments

Earning Capacity Assessments

An earning capacity assessment is a tool for life insurance/income protection claims to establish a person’s economic loss and provides recommendations on the person’s functional capacity, work skills/ability, personality, transferrable skills and work readiness.

Earning Capacity Assesments

Unemployed Spouse

Many spouses have been out of the competitive labor market due to their responsibilities of child care. An evaluation can be made regarding their ability to use their previous education, skills, and past employment to return to the local labor market. The evaluation determines the spouse’s highest level of employability and future earning capacity in the local labor market given their past education, work history, skills, and vocational capacity. The judge will use the information gained from the earning capacity assessment to impute the spouse’s income.

Underemployed Spouse

Due to layoffs, downsizing, or a poor economy, it’s not unusual for a spouse to be laid off from a job or to be working in a job that is not consistent with their past education and/or work experience. A vocational evaluation can assist in the determination of the persons highest earning capacity in the labor market.


Disabled Spouse

If a spouse states that their medical or psychological disability will prevent them from being employed, an employability evaluation can assess their vocational capacity and their ability to be competitively employed. This assessment consists of a review of the medical records, a vocational diagnostic interview if determined, vocational testing, analysis of the spouse’s transferable skills, and research as to what the person can earn in the competitive labor market.

Change of Financial Circumstances or Post-Divorce Reopener

After a divorce has been settled, an assessment of a spouse may be made due to a loss of a job, a new career, injury, or relocation. An evaluation of the effects of these life changes on the spouse’s employability and earnings can be made based on a transferability skills analysis and local labor market research which will document the spouse’s new earning capacity.


Evaluation of Lifetime Medical Costs of a disabled child

The lifetime costs of a disabled child are sometimes calculated into the financial settlement in a divorce. The OAS Rehabilitation Expert can evaluate the long term medical costs of the child’s disability by researching the cost of the required medical services in the local area. The development of a Life Care Plan can assist the court in adjudicating this complex issue.

Share by: