Your Ability to Earn is Your Most Valuable Asset

Disability insurance pays an insured person an income when that person is unable to work because of an accident or illness.  Check out the Preparing for Disability Financial Impact Review from The Council of Disability Awareness. 

Individual Disability insurance or Group Employer Disability Insurance.

If you purchase your own personal Individual Disability policy, you will be able to customize your plan by selecting your waiting period, benefit period, amount of monthly benefit and add other features (riders).  Your health, occupation, age, and gender determine your eligibility for a personal disability insurance policy.

There are two types of Group Disability Policies: Short-Term Disability (STD) and Long-Term Disability (LTD):

• Short-Term Disability policies (STD) have a waiting period of 0 to 14 days with a maximum benefit period of no longer than two years.
• Long-Term Disability policies (LTD) have a waiting period of several weeks to several months with a maximum benefit period ranging from a few years to the rest of your life.

Disability policies have different protection features that are important to understand, such as Non-Cancelable, Guarantee Renewable, Own-Occupation, Regular Occupation to name a few.

Non-Cancelable means the policy cannot be canceled by the insurance company, except for nonpayment of premiums. This gives you the right to renew the policy every year without an increase in the premium or a reduction in benefits.

Guaranteed Renewable gives you the right to renew the policy with the same benefits and not have the policy canceled by the company. However, your insurer has the right to increase your premiums as long as it does so for all other policyholders in the same rating class as you.

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