The What, Why’s And How’s Of Disability Insurance

Picture by Stefan Schranz

You’re thinking of purchasing or have already purchased disability insurance because you’re; responsible, mature and probably have a partner or dependants. Or you’re just looking into it to see what it’s all about and if it’s worth the investment. With at least 1 in 4 people from their early 20’s onwards becoming disabled at some point during their career, you can be assured with a probability such as this it’s worth it.  How can this happen to you? You’re wondering, well in quite a few ways. It could occur as a result of working, losing physical ability due to a heart attack or because of cancer. It could happen to most people, some with a higher risk for certain scenarios than others, but we’ll get to that in a second. For a clean cut explanation of what disability insurance is, why you need it, and how to get it, keep on reading.

What Is it?

In layman’s terms, disability insurance covers you financially in the event you become disabled. There are two types of coverage available:

• Short term – This covers your disability for a short period, around 6 months.
• Long term – This can incorporate financial cover for an entire lifetime.

Bear in mind, you may already be covered for a possible future disability either by social security benefit or disability insurance paid for you by your workplace. It’s paramount to find out what your existing disability insurance (if you have any) covers before you think about paying for private insurance.

Why Do You Need It?

Why do you need disability insurance? The same can be said for home insurance and life insurance. You need it because of the what if’s of life that are wildly unpredictable regarding the time, and velocity a tragic event will unfold. When it does strike, you’ll be happy you’re secured financially against some of life’s threats to your quality of life and families livelihood, opposed to not investing in insurance and trying to protect your earnings after the scenario of becoming disabled.

How Do You Purchase Coverage?

If you don’t already have a policy or having read your existing work disability policy, for instance, it doesn’t seem sufficient enough to cover what you would like, you can contact an insurance broker to provide you with disability insurance options that are the most appropriate to you. Your monthly premiums are determined by; your occupation, existing health issues, age and whether you have any children. Of course, the older you are, the more dangerous your job, and the more health issues you have, the higher your premium is going to be.

Past the points of what, why and how to get disability insurance, be conscientious and suspicious about the plan you are looking at signing for. It’s not unfamiliar for disability claims to be rejected by an insurance company and appealing your decision can be costly. To avoid an event such as this, you need help from an expert who deals with these cases regularly, see more from Darras Law. It’s in your interest to seek expert advice from a legal department, this could be the very team that helps you appeal a decision for a claim in the future.