Is Disability Insurance a Mature Enough Industry that you should Trust in its Ability to Help?
Disability insurance, if you think about it, should figure on our list of things to do, just as much as medical insurance does, shouldn't it? About one in five Americans experiences some kind of injury every year that keeps them from working for a period of time. Depending on who is advertising, you can get to hear figures anywhere between 30% and 80%, as an estimation of your personal chances of being struck by some kind of disability in your lifetime. Disability insurance exists, to make up for whatever shortfall in salary you experience, when you cannot work. And all of this, is when most of all Americans get by with no disability insurance of their own. They can count themselves lucky if their employer happens to cover them, but that is all. Most people who cover themselves paying premiums out-of-pocket, never can afford enough.
The disability insurance industry, can think of no better way to respond to all of this, than by inflicting grisly advertisements on us, that make them sound like vultures circling in the sky. They put out statistics that go, 'Every second in America, there is a new disability that occurs". They get that figure from the National Safety Council that has kind of a broad definition for disability injury. If you get anything that keeps you away from any everyday activity for more than one day, they call that a disability injury. For instance, if you feel you can't go to the movies one night, because you were roughhousing with your kids, and got punched in the nose, that counts as a disability injury. Lots of people try to put in fake claims to get their hands on some undeserved disability payouts too, to make things worse. For some reason, doctors seem to buy a lot of disability insurance for themselves too, and they claim on them often. If most of our estimates of how likely we are to need disability insurance comes from people who take these into account , how do we really know how much we need it?
There's not a whole lot of independent information on the subject. There was a book called How to Insure Your Income, released more than 10 years ago, that gave you statistics that weren't all that different. The website of the Council for Disability Awareness has an online quiz, that says that if you have an office job, you just have a 10% chance of getting that unlucky. So how much is enough? About one in three workers in the country has some kind of coverage that their employers pay the premiums on. Everyone has Social Security, but you don't get more than a couple thousand dollars a month, and it's very, very difficult to qualify. If you're counting on worker's compensation, they'll only care if you are actually injured while at your post. Private disability insurance, even if you do buy it, can be difficult to claim on. They have all kinds of exclusions to try to disqualify you. They'll try to tell you, "Oh! so you can't work as a lathe turner anymore? We can't pay you , unless you try (and fail) at finding work as a holiday gift wrapper at the mall". Seeing as how difficult it is to come by proper coverage, perhaps it is just best to let things take care of themselves.
Disability insurance, if you think about it, should figure on our list of things to do, just as much as medical insurance does, shouldn't it? About one in five Americans experiences some kind of injury every year that keeps them from working for a period of time. Depending on who is advertising, you can get to hear figures anywhere between 30% and 80%, as an estimation of your personal chances of being struck by some kind of disability in your lifetime. Disability insurance exists, to make up for whatever shortfall in salary you experience, when you cannot work. And all of this, is when most of all Americans get by with no disability insurance of their own. They can count themselves lucky if their employer happens to cover them, but that is all. Most people who cover themselves paying premiums out-of-pocket, never can afford enough.
The disability insurance industry, can think of no better way to respond to all of this, than by inflicting grisly advertisements on us, that make them sound like vultures circling in the sky. They put out statistics that go, 'Every second in America, there is a new disability that occurs". They get that figure from the National Safety Council that has kind of a broad definition for disability injury. If you get anything that keeps you away from any everyday activity for more than one day, they call that a disability injury. For instance, if you feel you can't go to the movies one night, because you were roughhousing with your kids, and got punched in the nose, that counts as a disability injury. Lots of people try to put in fake claims to get their hands on some undeserved disability payouts too, to make things worse. For some reason, doctors seem to buy a lot of disability insurance for themselves too, and they claim on them often. If most of our estimates of how likely we are to need disability insurance comes from people who take these into account , how do we really know how much we need it?
There's not a whole lot of independent information on the subject. There was a book called How to Insure Your Income, released more than 10 years ago, that gave you statistics that weren't all that different. The website of the Council for Disability Awareness has an online quiz, that says that if you have an office job, you just have a 10% chance of getting that unlucky. So how much is enough? About one in three workers in the country has some kind of coverage that their employers pay the premiums on. Everyone has Social Security, but you don't get more than a couple thousand dollars a month, and it's very, very difficult to qualify. If you're counting on worker's compensation, they'll only care if you are actually injured while at your post. Private disability insurance, even if you do buy it, can be difficult to claim on. They have all kinds of exclusions to try to disqualify you. They'll try to tell you, "Oh! so you can't work as a lathe turner anymore? We can't pay you , unless you try (and fail) at finding work as a holiday gift wrapper at the mall". Seeing as how difficult it is to come by proper coverage, perhaps it is just best to let things take care of themselves.