California Disability Insurance and ID.me – ID.me Help Center

The California Employment Development Department (EDD) works with ID.me to verify the identity of Disability Insurance (DI) claimants. ID.me provides secure digital identity verification to make sure you are you—and not someone pretending to be you. This article outlines how claimants can verify their identity for disability insurance.

Note: If you’re a health professional or medical provider and need to verify your identity to certify DI claims for your patients, visit Verifying as a California medical provider for disability insurance.

About the verification process

ID.me’s next-generation identity platform meets the highest federal standards for online identity proofing and authentication. During the verification process, you will be asked to share your information.

In addition, ID.me has built rigorous security and privacy requirements into our technology. Learn more about ID.me’s Privacy Bill of Rights and how your information is protected.

Verify your identity

Follow the steps below to verify your identity as a new claimant or if you have an existing SDIO account.

1. Begin with CA EDD

To get started:

Visit the California EDD site and in the site header, select Benefits Login.
Sign in with an existing EDD account or to create a new account, select Register Now.
Select SDI Online, then Register as a Claimant. If you already registered as a Claimant you may be asked to verify your identity when you sign in to your SDI Online Account.
Select Verify with ID.me. You’ll be automatically directed to the ID.me sign-in page.

2. Verify your identity

You can verify your identity for disability insurance in California using self-service or on a short video call. For steps to verify your identity, visit Verifying your identity on a short video call.

Tip: You can verify in 38 languages (other than English) over a video call. When you start your verification, select Verify over a video call, then tell the Video Chat Agent the language you’d like to verify with. They will bring in a third-party interpreter to translate during the video call.

After you verify

If you verified your identity on a video call with a Video Chat Agent, there is still one more step you need to take. To complete your claimant registration:

Return to your SDI Online account, select Register as a Claimant and restart the registration process.
On the “Verify Your Identity” section, sign in to your ID.me account.
Select Allow to share your identity information with the EDD.

You may now finish your registration process with EDD. After you verify your ID.me account, you can log in to your California EDD SDI Online account to file and manage your claim.

Manage your ID.me account

After creating your ID.me account, you can also manage your account settings.

Account settings

Change or add email addresses to your account.
Reset your password.
If you can’t access your ID.me account email address, need to reset your password, or see an error message, visit I can't sign in to my account.

Multi-factor authentication

Learn more about Getting started with multi-factor authentication.
If you’re having trouble, visit Troubleshooting multi-factor authentication.