Disability Income Insurance
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Disability income insurance helps pay your bills, buy your groceries and keep a roof over your head when you are unable to work because you have been in an accident or have gotten terribly sick. Discovering that you have become sidetracked by a disability is hard enough to deal with without having to cope with money problems on top of it. If you do not want to become a financial burden to others, you do not want to fall behind in your bills or you do not want to have to worry about bill collectors calling and hassling you for money you do not have then take the time to purchase disability income insurance as soon as possible.
There is more than one type of disability and disability income insurance varies from company to company. Most disabilities are classified as sensory, mobility, cognitive, self-care, or work disabilities. All disabilities are not the same and some can be more debilitating than others. Disabilities that are covered by disability income insurance are not defined in the same way. In some cases an insurance plan will pay out if the person in question is unable due to the disability to perform their present work duties. Other companies will only pay out if you are unable to work at any job at which you have a certain level of training and/or experience. If you are only mildly disabled and can still work, just not at your current job, some insurance companies will pay out only if you get a job in another field of work all together.
Many insurance companies that sell disability income insurance go with the disabled definition of “own-occupation” for a period of two and sometimes three years and then consider the situation after that. Generally the “any-occupation” definition of disability comes into play much later on. In other cases, some insurance companies always stick with the “own-occupation” way of looking at things.
In order to qualify for disability income insurance it is usually necessary to be gainfully employed while you are collecting upon the disability benefits. There are some disability income insurance policies that will pay a person a portion of their benefit that they are eligible for on a monthly basis if a percentage of their income has been lost to them due to a disability they have become afflicted with. This is often known as a loss of earnings benefit or sometimes it is simply called a residual.
There are disability insurance policies that take into consideration the rehabilitation side of a policy holder’s recovery and will therefore pay a portion of or even all of the occupational therapy or rehabilitation a person needs to get in order to return to normal living. The insurance company must approve the occupational rehabilitation before it is undertaken. Be aware that many pre-existing conditions are not a part of a disability income insurance policy and those disabilities that arise as a result of war, suicide attempts or drug and/or alcohol abuse, or disabilities that occur during the commission of a crime are rarely if ever, covered.
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