Disability Insurance - Protect Yourself

What would happen if you were to die tomorrow?  About half of Americans have protected their families if this were to happen. What would happen if you were to become disabled?  Would you be able to put food on the table; pay the mortgage; keep the lights on; put gas in the car?  Unfortunately, roughly 75% of us are not protected against disability.

According to disabilitycanhappen.org:

• Just over 1 in 4 of today's 20 year-olds will become disabled before they retire.
• Over 36 million Americans are classified as disabled; about 12% of the total population. More than 50% of those disabled Americans are in their working years, from 18-64.
• A typical female, age 35, 5’4", 125 pounds, non-smoker, who works mostly an office job, with some outdoor physical responsibilities, and who leads a healthy lifestyle has the following risks:
• A 24% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer during her working career;
• with a 38% chance that the disability would last 5 years or longer,
• and with the average disability for someone like her lasting 82 months.
• If this same person used tobacco and weighed 160 pounds, the risk would increase to a 41% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer.
• A typical male, age 35, 5’10", 170 pounds, non-smoker, who works an office job, with some outdoor physical responsibilities, and who leads a healthy lifestyle has the following risks:
• A 21% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer during his working career;
• with a 38% chance that the disability would last 5 years or longer,
• and with the average disability for someone like him lasting 82 months.
• If this same person used tobacco and weighed 210 pounds, the risk would increase to a 45% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer.

As you can see, people become disabled more often than you might have thought!

When you are shopping around for disability insurance you’ll want the policy to include:

• A payout of 60% of your gross income. Typically, an insurance company will cover as much as 60% of your income.
• Coverage that lasts until age 65 when your retirement benefits will kick in
• “Own occupation” coverage.  “Own occupation” pays you if you can’t do your current job as opposed to “Any occupation” which pays you if you can’t work at all.
• A 60 to 90 day waiting period before your benefits begin (a longer waiting period can lower your premium). 
• A guaranteed renewable policy.  This means that as long as you pay your premium on time your coverage will not change until your termination date of the policy.

Believe it or not, accidents are not the cause of most disabilities.  With improved medical care the leading killers, cancer, heart disease and stroke are now among the leading causes of disability. 

Please, protect yourself and your family!  Disability insurance can be expensive but consider the following:

• A study, by the Housing and Home Finance Agency of the U.S. Government, found that 48 percent of home foreclosures were the result of disability 
• A study, by Harvard University, showed that disabling medical problems led to nearly half of the bankruptcy filings in 2001.