disability income protection

Why is an ability to earn an income your most valuable asset?

Protecting one’s ability to earn an income, or cover business overhead in the event of an injury or illness is tantamount to financial security. Imagine if you were unable to earn income for several months, a number of years, or in the most challenging of scenarios, until you reached retirement – be that age 65, 70 or perhaps 75.

While most all of us could weather not having income for a few months, going much beyond that time frame could cause one to have to spend down savings, investments, and possibly tax-advantaged retirement accounts.

There are options to help you protect your earned income, and these plans are available in essentially three formats. These being short term disability protection, which typically begins replacing your income after 30 days up to perhaps one year [although shorter elimination periods are available], and long term disability income protection that typically begins replacing your income after 90 days, and can continue paying you until age 65, 67, 70 or beyond. In addition, there are disability policies available that pay up to 10 times salary as lump sum after a six or 12 month elimination period, and are issued up to age 75. All disability policy proceeds when structured properly and paid for personally, can be received on a tax free basis – although we encourage all our clients to speak with their tax professional regarding such matters.

In addition to a core benefit, there are numerous riders that offer payment on a pro-rated basis for partial disability [in the event you can only work part time], future purchase options which provide you the opportunity to purchase additional income protection simply with proof of earnings [and no proof of insurability], inflation protection so that if you are disabled, and collecting a monthly benefit, your payments will increase over time by a factor typically of 3% or 6% each year, and there are other riders too. Beyond your core coverage and various riders, we believe what is most important is to secure disability income protection with an own occupation rating, which offers income protection based upon your profession, and thus if you were unable to work in your original chosen field of expertise, you could be entitled to receive your full monthly benefit, even though you might now find yourself at work in another chosen field of employment.

At LTCi Marketplace we tend to shy away from statistics; however, depending upon which resource or website you might look at, you’ll find that upwards of 35% of individuals find themselves unable to work at some point during their careers.

We encourage you to call us and explore whether disability income protection may make sense for you, or as we have done for other clients, to secure this valuable protection for children, or grandchildren – as a way to help protect families in the event an accident or illness strikes a grown child or grandchild, and they are unable to be actively at work for some period of time.  
Call us today (239) 461-5511
Or fill our our contact form and we'll get back to you soon.
© 2023 Mitchell Dannenberg. All Rights Reserved.