Have you ever thought or said to yourself that you don’t NEED disability insurance? Think your job is low key enough that injury or illness couldn’t ever limit you from working? Do you feel like you’d be able to manage paying for your lifestyle and bills with no income, even just temporarily?
These are all valid questions and pretty important ones to spend some time on. Of course like all insurance, disability (or “income replacement†as some may refer to it as) is protection against the unknown and a bit of a gamble. But similar to life insurance, it’s peace of mind for your spouse or family – or even just yourself – that in the event you are sick or hurt in a way that you’re unable to work, you can still have some financial means to cover your obligations.
Before you can decide if you need this protection, you need to understand what your options are. There are two main types of disability insurance:
- SHORT TERM
- Covers 40-60% of your base salary
- Can last from a few weeks to a year
- Short waiting period for coverage to kick in
- LONG TERM
- Covers 50-70% of your base salary
- Benefits are much longer, typically to age 65-70
- 90 day waiting period after onset of disability
We challenge you to check out these interesting stats on disability insurance and ask yourself honestly if you still believe you don’t need it:
- 1 in 4 people will become disabled during their working career… 1 in 4!
- Only 48% of Americans have enough saved to cover 3 months of living expenses with no income
- 90% of disabilities come from unpredictable health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, arthritis, lupus and MS
- 52% of disabled individuals without coverage took more than 2 years to recover financially
If insurance can be required to cover material things such as your home and car, you really should consider your paycheck something worth protecting too.
