What is Disability Insurance?
Disability Insurance, often called DI or disability income, insures your earned income against the risk that a disability creates when you are unable to complete the core functions of your work. For example, you may suffer from an inability to maintain composure in the case of a psychological disorders or an injury, illness or condition that causes physical impairment or incapacity to work. It may encompass paid sick leave, short-term disability benefits (STD), and/or long term disability benefits (LTD).
Types of Disability Insurance
Individual Disability Insurance - Employers who do not provide disability benefits to their employees, and self-employed individuals, may purchase individual disability insurance policies. Premiums and available benefits for individual coverage vary considerably between companies, occupations, states and countries. In general, premiums are higher for policies that provide more monthly benefits, offer benefits for longer periods of time, and start payments of benefits more quickly following a disability claim. Premiums also tend to be higher for policies that define disability in broader terms, meaning the policy would pay benefits in a wider variety of circumstances.
High-limit Disability Insurance - High-limit disability insurance is designed to keep individual disability benefits at 65% of income regardless of income level. Coverage is typically issued supplemental to standard coverage. With high-limit disability insurance, benefits can be anywhere from an additional $2,000 to $100,000 per month.
Key-person Disability Insurance - Key Person Disability Insurance provides benefits to protect a company from financial hardship that may result from the loss of a key employee due to disability. The company can use the benefits to hire a temporary employee should the disabled employee's disability appear to be short-term. In the case of permanent disability, benefits are used to help defray costs related to hiring a replacement, including recruitment, training, startup, loss in revenue and unfunded salary continuation costs.
Business Overhead Expense Disability Insurance - Business Overhead Expense (BOE) coverage reimburses a business for overhead expenses should the owner experience a disability. Eligible benefits include: rent or mortgage payments, utilities, leasing costs, laundry/maintenance, accounting/billing and collection service fees, business insurance premiums, employee salaries, employee benefits, property tax, and other regular monthly expenses.
