Protecting Your Family: Health Insurance, Life Insurance, And, Don’t Forget! – Disability Insurance
Protecting Your Family: Health Insurance, Life Insurance, And, Don’t Forget! – Disability Insurance
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Home Page Finance Protecting Your Family: Health Insurance, Life Insurance, And, Don’t Forget! – Disability Insurance
Protecting Your Family: Health Insurance, Life Insurance, And, Don’t Forget! – Disability Insurance
Posted: Apr 24th, 2008 | Comments: 0 | Views: 23 |
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Protecting Your Family: Health Insurance, Life Insurance, And, Don’t Forget! – Disability InsuranceAuthor: Ryan Patterson
A recent survey by Harris Interactive for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) found that most Baby Boomers underestimate their risk of missing work for an extended period of time due to a disability. Yet they believe that they are more likely to suffer such a disability than to die prematurely. What’s wrong with this picture? Like most breadwinners, Boomers buy family health insurance and life insurance to protect their families while skimping on long-term disability insurance.
How far off are the disability risk guesstimates of most Americans? A study sponsored by the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education called “The Real Risk of Disability in the United States” found that a white-collar worker between 35 and 65 years of age has a 27 to 31 percent chance of becoming disabled for 90 days or longer. Unfortunately, the duration of disabilities has increased substantially in the past few decades. In the 1970s and 80s, a 35-year-old male with such a disability would have been out of work, on average, almost four years. Today it’s six, because better medical care means that people with terminal illnesses are living longer. It does not, however, mean they are able to pull in their pre-disability income while they’re ill.
Steven Crawford, a Maryland-based disability insurance specialist, believes that a well considered policy is the keystone to any sound financial plan. Unfortunately, he notes, most financial advisers, not to mention the media at large, rarely mention the subject, even though a person’s ability to generate income is by far their most valuable asset.
“Everybody should have the maximum [benefits] they can afford,” Crawford says. “Somebody 20 years old
