In the last post, we talked about how pregnancy and delivery – something that working women often take months off of work from as they bring their babies home and settle into a routine – can quickly become the unexpected when moms find themselves facing a longer than normal recovery.
Pregnancy and delivery should be the most natural thing in the world but the fact is that sometimes things go wrong. When women find themselves in a tough situation and facing more recovery than they anticipated, many things cross their minds. The paramount concern, of course, is the care for their newborn; as well as the care for other children in the home. Moms being out of the equation – even for the shortest period of time – can render a household out of commission.
Then there is, of course, the financial concern especially if the mother was planning on going back to work after the traditional six-eight week maternity leave but finds herself unable to do so. The loss of a paycheck can financially devastate a family under normal circumstances but if you add a new baby and a struggling economy to the equation, the plot thickens considerably.
With disability insurance in place, however, women who have just given birth can concentrate on their family and on their recovery without having financial concerns get in the way. Disability income insurance can make up for lost salaries and keep a family financially above water until such time that those who are disabled can return to work. And if they are unable to return to work in any capacity for the foreseeable future, long term disability insurance will be there for policyholders to depend upon.
Some companies offer disability insurance plans in which employees can take part. But privately purchased disability insurance often provides the most options in terms of amount of coverage, policy payout wait times, and length of coverage.
Popularity: 21% [?]
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When we are younger we see pregnancy only as a natural thing; something that happens when we want it to, goes off without a hitch, and results in a normal labor and delivery, and a healthy baby. But as we get older and we begin to hear the stories of our friends and peers, we discover that the whole process is just not that simple. First off, how many people can we name that have struggled with infertility? Secondly, most of us know at least a handful of women that have had anything but a smooth pregnancy. Finally, labor and delivery may be natural but it’s also fraught with danger. There are so many possible things that could go wrong during delivery.
Most of the time, because of the medical advancements that we have available to us and the state of our healthcare system, women – even those who face a difficult labor and delivery – are fine in the end and wind up delivering completely healthy babies. But in some cases, while the baby is fine, the mother faces a difficult recovery. And this is where expectations can easily go off the tracks.
The truth is that as much as we are emotionally invested in the process of having a baby there are other considerations as well. As much as we do not want to think about finances during such a wonderful time, the fact remains that we all have bills to pay and if the mother is a working woman she has made arrangements to be away from her job for a period of time. If, however, the actual process of labor and delivery renders her disabled for an extended period, private disability insurance can help ensure that finances are not something that anyone has to consider with fear and loathing.
In the next post, we’ll continue to talk about how disability insurance can protect a family following pregnancy and delivery.
Popularity: 12% [?]
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Debt has become something that most of us are all too complacent about; the average American, in fact, carries an average of $9,000 in credit card debt – something that is born from our inability to pay for those things we want in cash. With the economy struggling even more so today, more and more of us are finding ourselves in the position of carrying significant debt. It is, unfortunately, something that many of us just accept as a by-product of the economy. And we hope that by at least continuing to make minimum payments every month – until we are able to make some headway with a bulk amount of cash at some point – we can stay in the good graces of the credit bureaus and one day find financial independence.
This plan is all well and good on paper until there is a sudden and dramatic loss of income, such as what can happen when an earner find themselves out of a job due to illness or injury. In that kind of situation, without comprehensive disability income insurance in place, a consumer can very easily find themselves overwhelmed and eventually in default.
Disability insurance can put protective measures in place so the loss of a job doesn’t have to necessarily mean the end of the world financially. When an injury or illness causes someone to be identified as disabled and someone who cannot continue in their present line of work, the stream of income ceases. In a perfect world, the injured or ill person has a spouse that is able to make up for this loss of income; but often this is not the case and families wind up turning to savings and investments in order to fill their financial need.
With disability income insurance, however, policy payouts begin after the policy-stipulated waiting period and policyholders are able to meet their financial responsibilities – including debt payments – even with the loss of their paycheck.
Popularity: 19% [?]
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Most of us who have children begin to put away money for college following their birth. We hope to build a substantial enough nest egg that they can go away to school and study what they want without the burden of student loans on their shoulders when they graduate. But it’s amazing how quickly those hard earned savings can disappear if you do not have the proper tools in place to protect yourself and your family.
Consider, for example, those who have opted not to purchase private disability insurance or take part in company-provided disability insurance plans. Essentially this makes you vulnerable to any possible illness or injury that may take you out of work. And how quickly would most of us go under without even our next paycheck?
An illness that requires a hospital stay, ongoing treatments, or renders someone unable to do their job in the short term or the long term can financially bury a family. An accident that results in an absence or permanent separation from work can mean a complete financial – as well as personal – transformation. How many of us have the resources available to us to be able to survive such an event in our lives?
What generally happens with those who do not have disability insurance is that once all vacation, personal, and sick time is taken from work, they turn to their savings accounts, investments, retirement funds, and even their children’s education savings. These are desperate times and they call for desperate measures. A child’s education could easily be sacrificed to save a family from financial ruin.
With disability insurance in place, however, parents do not have to turn to such extreme measures. Their policy payouts will account for their missing income and keep their family afloat during this period of time so that savings, the family home, and investments are secure.
Popularity: 21% [?]
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In the last post I talked about how I started my career with little money and only a desire to stretch my paycheck as far as it would go. Like most young people in this position, I was largely unconcerned with those things I considered to be “down the road” financial decisions – retirement, disability, increased life insurance, etc. It wasn’t until my frank sit-down with a financial planner that I discovered just how vulnerable I was without having these important things put in place. And so, following our meeting I set about to make more responsible financial decisions including contributing to my company’s 401k plan, choosing the best health insurance plan available to me, increasing my life insurance, and choosing disability insurance.
In terms of disability insurance, I opted to take part in one of my company’s disability insurance plans; but I also purchased private disability insurance in order to make sure that any gaps were covered. It turns out that this decision saved my family significant financial stress.
About four years after I got disability insurance – I was now married with two small children – I was in a car accident that left me severely injured. I was in the hospital for six weeks and faced many more months of intensive rehabilitation. Work was out of the question and I quickly enacted my disability insurance policy through my job. But it turns out the wait time for policy payments was several months and without that money my family would be behind in everything from the mortgage to the utilities. My husband, who was taking significant time off from work himself, was barely able to cover the bills.
But our private disability insurance policy had a much shorter wait time and we wound up starting to receive payments within a few weeks. This covered the time that I had to wait for my company’s disability insurance to kick in.
Today I am back to work and feeling much stronger. But I know that without that disability insurance policy my family would have had double the stress – caring for me and dealing with the repercussions of our financial situation. Thankfully, because I made a good decision, that was not our story.
Popularity: 13% [?]
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Quite a few years ago when I first started my career, I was like anyone else just starting out – I was eager, hungry for work, and really poor. As most of us do at that age, I opted for as little benefits that I would have to pay out of pocket for as I tried to maximize the amount in my paycheck. However, as I got further on in my career I felt as though I was probably doing myself an injustice in terms of my future and I sat down with a financial planner to see what I should be doing with my money.
The financial planner quickly pointed out that while I was carrying health insurance, I had opted for the bare bones plan – something he thought I should reconsider, especially when I decided to have a family. Further, he noticed that I was not contributing to my 401k – something that he said was like throwing money out the window considering that my company matched funds for vested employees. Additionally, while I did have life insurance, he was concerned that I was not carrying disability insurance – especially since my company offered disability insurance plans from which to choose. He felt as though this was extremely risky considering how early on I was in my career. If I got hurt or sick, how would I be able to support myself until the age of retirement?
Needless to say, I left that meeting quite a bit shaken and committed to making some changes in my financial portfolio. I changed my health insurance policy, upped my life insurance, began contributed to my company’s 401k plan, and not only took advantage of one of the disability insurance plans available through my job, but also purchased a private disability insurance policy as a supplement.
As you’ll read in the next post, this decision wound up saving my family from financial ruin.
Popularity: 18% [?]
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There are many people who are lucky enough to have really great benefits from their job. This may include comprehensive health insurance, a retirement savings plan, and even life and disability insurance. These are important components in a benefits package and can make up for even a slightly lower than average salary. In terms of all of these benefits, however, it is very important for an employee to really look at the extent of the benefits and decide if they need to supplement them in any way. For instance, an employer may offer a life insurance policy that only goes up to a maximum amount; therefore, the employee – perhaps with dependent children – may decide that they need to purchase private life insurance in order to supplement the insurance provided by their company.
With disability income insurance, the same premise can apply. The disability insurance policy provided by the company where you are employed may only cover you for a specific period of time, or may come with a waiting period – that is the time that you must wait before you receive disability benefits. With regard to these stipulations and more it may be wise to purchase private disability income insurance in order to make sure that all your needs are covered.
For instance, you may purchase a private long term disability insurance policy to cover you until the age of traditional retirement – this in addition to company disability insurance plans that may only cover you for a certain period of time. Or, if the amount of time that you have to wait to receive your policy payouts concerns you, it may be necessary to purchase private disability insurance in order to cover this gap. After all, most people do not have savings or investments that are readily available to cover them for this amount of time. A private disability insurance policy ensures that all of your bases are covered.
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Popularity: 31% [?]
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There are some things that we just have to do – like it or not – in this lifetime in order to best protect ourselves and our family. Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and get it done; you can then move on knowing that you won’t have to do it again anytime soon and you are protected. Many people feel this way about life insurance or about doing their will. Surely no one likes to think about their mortality or what would happen to their kids if they died but the fact remains that these are things that responsible people need to do, no matter how uncomfortable the process.
This is also very much the case with long term disability. No one wants to consider the possibility of getting so ill they cannot return to work, or being involved in an accident so severe that their life is altered. But the fact remains, as is the case with life insurance and the rest, that these possibilities must be considered if you are to protect yourself and your family.
The good news is that with a good long term disability policy the process can be completed quickly; completing the application process and choosing from among the available disability insurance plans takes very little time and can be eased by working with a knowledgeable professional who can lead you in the right direction for your circumstances and your budget.
Once you have chosen a disability insurance policy you can essentially “forget” that you have it until such time that you have to renew (if you have chosen that type of policy). But you can carry on knowing that you have done the responsible thing in protecting your family in the unlikely event of an illness or injury that hinders your earning potential.
Popularity: 25% [?]
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Ever hear of the phrase, “coulda, shoulda, woulda?” This of course refers to the principle of hindsight being 20/20. Most of us, knowing what we know now, would certainly go back in time and amend a few of the decisions that we have made accordingly. But, of course, that’s not possible and, in most cases, we are stuck with the outcome of our choice. In some instances, we had all the information at our disposal to make the responsible choice but we choose at the time to ignore that information – sometimes costing us far more than we could have ever imagined.
This is often the case for those who choose, for a myriad of reasons, not to purchase disability insurance. We surely never expect to get sick or to get injured in an accident; and even if we do, most of us would never imagine that such an illness or injury would preclude us from going back to work and earning a paycheck. But it happens every day. And those people who find themselves in the position of having no income and limited (if any) savings and investments, the prospects are terrifying. These are the times, of course, when they are wishing with everything they have that they had opted to purchase disability income insurance.
Disability insurance is something that you should not wait to consider because by then it could easily be too late. Instead, disability insurance plans – such as short term disability and long term disability insurance – should be considered as a preventative measure. We don’t use health insurance every day but that doesn’t mean we don’t need or won’t need it in the future. The same can be said of disability insurance. Just as medical bills would quickly sink us without health insurance, making up for lost income can easily destroy us financially without disability insurance in place. Make the decision to get prepared today!
Popularity: 27% [?]
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We have all had ingrained in us the importance of planning for our future. Even as young people just starting out in the work world we have it drilled into our head how crucial it is to start retirement savings right away; and most of us do just that in an effort to be financially responsible and plan well for what lies ahead. But, unfortunately, far too few of us give insurance policies the same consideration, even though they are just as important; specifically long term disability.
For most of us, it is a far more natural undertaking to go about getting life insurance. This is an insurance policy that we always knew we needed, and most of us go right to work making that happen when we get married or have children. But disability insurance receives far less attention in terms of the importance of insurance; even though it is just as crucial for protecting an individual and a family.
Individual: Consider for a moment that you are hurt or injured and unable to return to work. Perhaps you have savings and investments you can call upon; but most of us don’t. And even if we do, how long will they last? This puts a grown adult in the position of possibly having to move back in with family. Long term disability insurance can protect your income and preserve your lifestyle in the face of unusual circumstances.
Couple: When two people are sharing the responsibility of contributing to a household income, their world can be shattered when one is unable to continue earning. This puts the financial pressure on the partner to make up for lost income, while perhaps simultaneously caring for their sick or injured loved one. With long term disability insurance, however, financial restraints are removed.
Family: This is the most crucial scenario of all as an entire family may be counting on the income of the person who is suddenly unable to earn. With long term disability insurance in place we are able to provide for our families no matter what our present circumstances.
Popularity: 31% [?]
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