Quick – what’s your most valuable asset? Is it your smartphone? Your car? Your house?
Or is it your earning potential?
As a doctor, you’ve worked hard to build your career. Now it’s time to protect your career with disability insurance coverage for doctors. Even if you’re still a resident, you can benefit from securing coverage and locking in attractive rates and terms.
Disability insurance coverage offers important protection for anyone who depends on a paycheck. This is especially true for doctors who have made substantial investments into their career.
Think about what would happen if a disability prevented you from working as a doctor. You would lose you current income, as well as your future earning potential.
Without the right disability insurance coverage, you might not be able to maintain the lifestyle you’ve worked so hard for – and you still have the mortgage or rent, car payments, grocery bills, utility costs, student loan debt and other responsibilities.
And don’t make the mistake of assuming you don’t need individual disability insurance because you think you’ll be covered by other programs …
Social Security Disability Insurance benefits offer a safety net for some people, but you shouldn’t count on this program to help you.
SSDI uses a very strict definition of disability, and many people aren’t eligible even if a disability keeps them from working in their chosen field. SSDI benefits also tend be pretty small – the estimate average monthly SSDI benefit for January 2022 was only $1,358.
Group disability benefits offered from an employer may also be insufficient to meet your needs. These benefits often have limited, “any occupation” definitions of disability that don’t provide benefits if you can work in another occupation. The monthly benefit caps also tend to leave high earners with a lot of uncovered income, and policies aren’t typically portable if you decide to switch jobs.
If you want robust disability insurance coverage, you should look into your individual disability insurance options. You can also stack an individual disability insurance policy with a group policy to get superior protection.
Getting the right policy is essential, and not all policies are the same. Here are a few things to consider when looking at individual disability insurance policies for doctors.
Some policies offer limited any occupation coverage. Others offer more robust own occupation coverage, and that is especially important for doctors. You also need to consider whether you’re getting specialty-specific coverage that will provide benefits if you can’t work in the specific specialty you’ve trained for.
A non-cancellable guaranteed renewable policy will allow you to keep your policy as long as you keep making premium payments.
As your career progresses, your salary will likely increase. The future purchase option lets you increase your benefits without additional medical underwriting.
This is how long you can receive benefits, and it can be as short as two years. Some policies provide benefits until you reach retirement age.
This is the waiting period that has to lapse after you experience a disability and before you can claim benefits. A shorter elimination period helps you collect benefits faster, but it can also raise your costs.
There are many other riders that can help customize coverage to your needs.
The best time to buy coverage is at the start of your career. For doctors, this means during your residency or fellowship. There are two reasons to buy disability insurance as early as possible.
One, you never know when a disability might strike. You might feel invincible now, but as a doctor, you know that no one is really immune to disability. You could be injured in a car crash, diagnosed with cancer, or overcome with depression or anxiety. If you wait to buy coverage, you might not have it when you need it.
Second, you can lock in better rates and conditions when you’re young. If you wait, your rates may go up. You could even be denied coverage, especially if you develop a medical condition.
By purchasing disability insurance coverage with non-cancellable and guaranteed renewable features plus a future purchase option, you’re ensuring that you always have the coverage you need at affordable rates. If you don’t think you’ll qualify for coverage because of your pre-existing conditions, talk to us about your options. We are here to advocate on your behalf.
