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Disability

Disability Insurance

What would happen if your paychecks suddenly stopped because you were too sick or injured to work? You would still have bills to pay for such things as food, housing, utilities, transportation, tuition, retirement funding and more. Where would you get the necessary funds?

When you’re healthy and working, it’s hard to imagine being disabled by illness or injury; but consider these statistics:

  • 1 in 3 working Americans will become disabled for 90 days or longer before reaching age 65.
  • The average length of a work absence due to a disability is 3 ½ years.
  • More than 80% of working Americans either have no disability income protection or are inadequately covered.

To understand the financial burden that an average disability related work absence could place on you and your family, calculate your total expenses for a period of 3 ½ years. Then you’ll see how quickly your savings could be depleted by an unexpected injury or illness.

If you still believe that you are adequately protected, here are a few more things you should know:

  • Social Security disability payments cover only disabilities expected to last at least 12 months or end in death. To qualify, you must be unable to engage in any type of work.
  • Long-term disability insurance through employers, if available, often covers only about 50% of your earnings. Could your family survive on half a paycheck?


Why not plan ahead to protect your lifestyle? MBA offers flexible disability income plans underwritten by Mutual of Omaha and Assurity Life which can:

  • Provide monthly income to help preserve your standard of living
  • Be customized to fit your particular situation
  • Help you retain your independence and dignity without burdening others
  • Keep your financial goals and dreams intact

To learn more about Disability Income Insurance or to request a quote, please call 651-735-9874 or email info@MinnesotaBenefitAssociation.org

Testimonials

Long Term Disability

Ten years ago, Janet Freedman was rushing out the door of her home for work. Her arms loaded with tax returns, she missed a step on the stairs on her front porch and fell, hitting her head on the concrete. When her neighbors found her, she was barely conscious, with her head trapped between her own front steps and those of the house next door.

Paralyzed, with a partially severed spinal cord, it took more than six months of hospitalization and two years of intensive physiotherapy for Freedman to resume her life. She was unable to work and had no one to support her. “Thank goodness I had a good private disability insurance plan,” says Freedman, a certified financial planner and author of Hit by an Iceberg: Coping with Disability in Mid-Career. “Those payments allowed me to concentrate on my rehabilitation and to live my life without worrying about where the money was coming from for daily living expenses. That made a big difference to me and my recovery.”

While many of us understand the importance of life insurance, the truth is that insurance against an accident or disease that prevents you from working is arguably even more important. A typical 30-year-old has a four times greater chance of becoming disabled than he does of dying before age 65. A full one in six Americans will be disabled for three months or more before the age of 50.

You may already have a disability plan through your work. However, keep in mind that many disability plans include a cap on benefits. For instance, your plan may cover 60% of your gross income, but only up to $2,500 a month. That means if you’re earning more than $50,000 a year, you may not have enough coverage.

If you earn a high income, you may want to consider a private disability plan to supplement your group benefits.

Short Term Disability

My fiancee is a Registered Nurse (RN). Her job involves standing and walking almost all day (unlike my desk job in accounting). Bad feet and having to be on your feet all day is a bad combination.

Basically her feet kept getting wider due to bad ligaments. This was fine until it got to the point where she could no longer find shoes that comfortably fit her for 12 hour shifts.
We were surprised to find out if her problem didn’t get fixed in time there would be a point where they could no longer fix it. It was at this point that we realized she had to have surgery to fix it before it got worse.

The Problem with Surgery

There is a major problem with foot surgery if you’re a nurse. You can’t work if you can’t be on your feet. There is no light duty option like my desk job. No work = no income… unless you have disability insurance and your surgery is covered..

Well, we didn’t appreciate our disability coverage until we figured out she’d be off her job for at least 8-10 weeks. It was at that point we knew we had to come up with a solution.
Instead of receiving 0% of her paycheck for 10 weeks, we ended up receiving 60% of her paycheck for those 10 weeks. This was a huge benefit for us. Without this benefit she would have used a ton of her vacation time and we still wouldn’t have anywhere near a normal income.