|
Long Term Disability Insurance |
|
Written by Harrison Brown
|
Do you need long term disability insurance ? Like all other forms of insurance, this type is designed to help provide an individual with financial protection if in fact there is an incident that leaves them disabled. You have no way of knowing if you will need this policy during your lifetime, but should you risk not having one at all? That could be financial ruin. A good way to see the value of this type of disability insurance is to consider how well your family would be able to maintain their quality of life if you were unable to financially contribute to it. This can be hard to look at, but very important to do so.
What Is Disability Insurance?Disability insurance is a type of insurance protection that protects your earnings from the unknown. If you become disabled, it will replace your income at that point. By most accounts, professionals believe it is just as important, if not more so, to have disability insurance than it is to have life insurance. You may be wondering about your health insurance. Would your health insurance cover these costs? Your health insurance is likely to cover your medical bills and may cover some of the additional costs you have. Most health insurance policies do not provide any type of restitution for your work income that is lost, though. How would you be able to pay the mortgage, get groceries or continue to invest in your child's education?
There are two main types of disability insurance, based on the period. They are short-term disability insurance and long term disability insurance. Short-term protection is just what it sounds like. It provides you with a replacement salary if you are out of work for a short period, such as six months or less. Usually, this type of policy will only come into play if you are out of work longer than your six days allow for. At that point, it will pay 100 percent of your wages. Keep in mind that with short term insurance, you will not receive the full amount of your lost wages. The initial payment is generally 100 percent of the wages. After this point, most payments will drop to 60 percent of your wages. When you are considering these policies, be sure to look at these terms carefully to know what you are getting.
The second type is long-term disability insurance. If you were to buy just one option, this would be the one to have. With this type of disability protection, you can count on this insurance for a wide range of scenarios. The reason that more people than ever need to have this form of insurance is simple. Today, people are living longer but because of medical advances. People do not die as easily from medical illnesses, but they do live longer sometimes disabled doing so.
This form of disability insurance offers a variety of options. Usually you have the ability to purchase the disability insurance to replace any place from 50 to 70 percent of your income. Your employer may offer this type of insurance protection. If so, they may be able to help you to get it up to 80 percent of your income. Most of these policies do put a cap on the amount of money you can receive per month, which could reduce the percentage of your payout. Again, it is important to know the details of your plan before you decide to purchase it.
|
|
Read more...
|