Do You Have Disability Insurance?

Yes, this is Walter with half of his body inside the cat toy drawer.

I’ve been working full-time for my company for a little over 5 years. A few weeks after I quit my previous job, I was home for Christmas, and I had a good talk with my parents about the future.

One of the things they asked me about was disability insurance. I was familiar with other forms of insurance–car, life, health, etc–but I’d never heard of disability insurance.

The basic idea behind it is if something happens to you that renders you unable to work, if you have disability insurance, it will continue to effectively pay you a salary. Not your full salary, but usually enough to pay your core expenses.

For many people, if they can’t work for a month or two, they can tap into their savings to cover the gap. But disability insurance becomes important if you can’t work for a long time–like, if an accident or illness renders you unable to work for years.

So I contacted my amazing insurance agent, Jackie, and I signed up. I hope I never have to use it, but I feel secure knowing that it has my back if something really bad happens. After all, I need to take care of Biddy and Walter.

Why am I talking about this today? Well, a few months ago, a friend’s wife had a stroke. She’s recovering amazingly well, and I think the prospects are good that she’ll be able to work in the future. But in the blink of an eye, they went from a two-income household to a single-income household, and even with solid health insurance covering some of the medical bills, that second income is a big loss. As far as I’m aware, she didn’t have disability insurance.

The situation made me want to share the concept of disability insurance with you in the slim chance that it will help someone who may need it someday. I genuinely mean that. I know it’s not a perfect solution–the whole concept of insurance is that you’re paying for something that you may never benefit from–but I know I’m glad to have it.

Do you have disability insurance? Was your reasoning similar to mine?

5 thoughts on “Do You Have Disability Insurance?”

  1. Yup, this hits close to home. We didn’t have disability insurance after Mira’s accident and it took about a year to get Social Security disability to even consider paying out. It’s rough going from two streams of income to only one. I’m still not sure if we have disability insurance (or even if we can) but it’s on my list to check.

    Reply
  2. I am on social security disability, and it is a lifeline, but yes is super hard to get, and we lost our house while waiting for it to kick in. This is a great idea, and I hope people listen to Jamey.

    Reply
  3. Jamey,

    Yes, I have it and was a necessary expense when I was still married and had a little one at home. While I still have it (gov’t employees do experience exceptionally good rates), it’s not as critical as I’m not married, 15 years older and much closer to retirement, and my little one is now in college. But, yes, your rationale is quite sound…things can change in the blink of an eye.

    Joe

    Reply
  4. Yep got some for myself. Wife recently started working so this is a great reminder that we need to get it for her as well. Thanks for the “public service” of reminding people they need to worry about the future because you can’t plan accidents.

    Reply
  5. Thanks for mentioning this. It’s important for people to know about. I have long term disability through my employer. They actually enroll you by default when you start at the company because we feel it’s so important. The premium is very reasonable. I’m not sure how much of the premium my company covers vs. the amount I pay, but it’s a really great way for an employer to let their employees know that they care about their wellbeing, even when they aren’t able to be at work.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from jameystegmaier.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue Reading