Disability insurance

For anyone who is looking to sign up for disability insurance or if you already have coverage and want to search for a better rate....be sure to get a quote through the AMA.

We recently signed up for disability insurance through them and our premium is $3000 (60%) LESS a year than what we were paying for our previous policy....and that is for 50% MORE coverage and with an insurance company that has a higher rating than the previous company.

I couldn't believe the difference in price, but I guess through the AMA we are getting a group rate and no one is collecting any commissions on our policy. Now I'm kicking myself for not checking in to it sooner. They also offer life insurance.

[migirl]

Thanks for the tip, Erica. We are currently in the process of purchasing a disability and life insurance policy, I'll have to look into this.

Wow, I hadn't even thought about checking with them. DH isn't a member but that is a story for another post. He did have a life insurance policy with them quite a while ago and the rate seemed reasonable.

I'll have to remember some of the things his policy has that made it so super-duper. Are the policies comparable or better than what you had before? That is a huge savings.

One thing -- I think that it is specialty specific rather than profession specific (if a disability prevents you from doing your field, you are covered). Do you know if the AMA policy is similar?

Yes, Nellie, to answer your question....the policy we have through the AMA is specialty specific so if DH loses an arm or whatever, he won't be forced to go into psychiatry or another field that is less physical than EM. The policy we have with the AMA has all of the same features as the one we had with our prior insurer and we were able to get higher coverage limits. Another thing is that dh is blind in one eye due to a childhood accident. His last policy excluded both eyes from coverage which I never understood...so if his good eye was injured, he would not have been covered...not good. Our new policy only excludes his blind eye.

We checked into life insurance through the AMA as well and it was only about 10% less than our current policy. Not a huge savings, but better than nothing I guess.

The underwriting process does take a while. I think it took about 3 months to get through the application process. But, come to think of it, I think it took about that long with our last carrier as well.

Now I get to call our financial planner and tell him to cancel our old policy. I have a feeling he'll miss that nice commission check! :>

question

EDWife or others,

I have disability insurance through my employer which is decent. We have been looking for disability insurance for dh since it seems like the chance of disability is so much higher than death.

So, here is the question, DH is beginning his fellowship in a pretty lucrative specialty. His fellowship income is a pittance so I am not concerned with insuring against that, we don't need it to live on and bank it all anyway - - my concern is more his eventual income three or four years down the line when (if!) he joins a private practice.

Has anyone dealt with this? Can you insure for FUTURE lost earnings that are six or more times higher than current earnings as a fellow?

Thanks for any advice.

Re: question

So, here is the question, DH is beginning his fellowship in a pretty lucrative specialty. His fellowship income is a pittance so I am not concerned with insuring against that, we don't need it to live on and bank it all anyway - - my concern is more his eventual income three or four years down the line when (if!) he joins a private practice.

Has anyone dealt with this? Can you insure for FUTURE lost earnings that are six or more times higher than current earnings as a fellow?

Um, I don't think so....but def don't take my word for it. We tried to cover dh's moonlighting pay during residency, but they were only willing to cover his resident's salary. I think he had only been moonlighting for about 6 months or so at the time so they would not take that income into account. And when we increased the amounts at the start of this job, we could only go as high as his base salary...future bonuses could not be taken into account. We had to wait till he received a bonus so that we had proof of how much his bonuses are. Based on that, I would guess that they will not take future earnings into account. It wouldn't hurt to check, though.

[migirl]

I agree with Erica, I don't think you can insure for potential future income. The disability plans we're looking at cover DH's current salary as a resident, and then we have the option to convert them at a higher level of coverage once he graduates.

Thanks for the info edwife and migirl. Well, I am even more determined to keep dh healthy in light of this! In fact, given the total investment in training, I don't think I would be unreasonable in asking him to finish out his fellowship in a plastic bubble . . .

I agree about the disability level of coverage. When we increased DH's disability policy, he had to submit an income statement. There was some confusion about how much we were increasing it and at some point the agent said that we couldn't go over X amount because of his current pay.

We increased it because we decided to forgo the group disability coverage here. At the program he started at, the disability coverage was no extra expense for us (but benefits would be taxed). At the current program, it is an out-of-pocket expense but one that could be paid post-tax (benefits would be tax-free). The rate wasn't a whole lot different but there are some shortcomings with group coverage and we felt like his personal policy would be better to go with. I'm glad we got a policy with a rider to increase coverage to a certain level.