You enjoy your lifestyle because you earn enough money to buy the things that make you happy. You also have bills to pay. If you couldn’t work, how would you pay the bills for the things you bought?
A disability insurance policy can provide the solution. The program can be designed to pay benefits when you work (but can’t work full time due to illness or injury – partial disability) or when you don’t work (total disability due to illness or injury).
If you work for an employer, the employer may provide benefits through a group plan. The group plan may include short term disability benefits (up to 26 weeks), and it may include long term benefits (all the way to age 65).
If you are self-employed, the need for income is more critical – you can lose customers and sources of revenue if you can’t work, or can’t work full time due to the disability. It is important therefore to be sure you have the protection in place to guarantee income in the event of serious illness or injury. If you run a business with additional expenses, you should also consider a business overhead expense disability insurance policy.
There are a wide variety of disability policies in the marketplace, but there are a few more significant provisions that you want to make sure are included with the program. You want to be sure the definition of disability is based on your own occupation, regardless of whether you have to change jobs and find another line of activity. Many policies include offsets if you earn income in another job, and other policies require consideration of whether you can perform work by reason of education, training, and experience.
The policy selected should include a residual or partial disability benefit. If you can still work, but lose income due to a loss of time to perform the job, the policy should provide a percentage of your monthly benefit based on the loss of income.
The policy selected should also include a cost of living adjustment. If you require benefits for a long period of time, the benefits should increase while you are receiving payments to account for future increases in the cost of living.
The policy can incorporate many optional features to enhance the benefits, including an automatic increase in coverage regardless of income, an option to buy additional benefits in the future without evidence of insurability (an excellent option for young doctors/physicians), and an extension of benefits for life.
There are a number of factors to consider in the design of a disability policy – TermInsuranceBrokers is happy to assist in answering any questions you may have and helping you secure the best benefits for your premium dollar. CLICK HERE if you would like a quote for disability insurance. Please give us a call at 1-888-972-0024 or CLICK HERE to send us an e-mail 24 hours a day with any questions.
