A Case Study: Karen

Karen M. was a vibrant thirty-five year old with a successful career as a dental hygienist, a husband, two children under the age of ten, and a wonderful home in a great part of town. She had a great life raising her family and finding personal satisfaction through her job. With both Karen’s and her husband’s salaries they were able to comfortably pay their mortgage and still had money left over for nice vacations and the extras that made life so much fun. Karen also took great pride in staying healthy – eating right and working out several times a week.

It made no sense to anyone who knew Karen – and absolutely less sense to Karen – that she would suddenly suffer a stroke at such a young age.

Suddenly, life was completely upside down for Karen and her family. Her days were spent recuperating – an endless cycle of physical rehabilitation and occupational therapy; recovering her speech and her ability to care for herself on her own. The doctors gave her a great prognosis for a full recovery but she had a long road ahead of her.

But Karen and her husband faced other issues besides Karen’s medical condition. Because she was out of work – and would be for a significant time to come – the loss of Karen’s paycheck was hitting the family hard. Karen and her husband had opted out of purchasing disability insurance and now they were scrambling to pay bills on one paycheck. As if recovery wasn’t enough to focus on, Karen and her husband were now worried about their mortgage, their utilities, and child care. Clearly the decision to forgo disability insurance was not a wise choice.

We buy insurance in the hopes that we will never need it. It is, in fact, meant only as protection for possibilities not eventualities. But sometimes those eventualities do happen and the insurance that we have purchased makes what are certainly trying times just a little bit easier.

Disability insurance is meant to protect in the case of injury or illness. We hope never to have to need it. But if we do become ill or injured and are unable to return to work, disability income insurance is meant to protect our finances so that we will not suffer financial ramifications along with everything else.

It is certainly easy to see from Karen’s story how crucial disability insurance can be to protecting our interests in the event of illness or injury. After all, how long would any of us survive financially with the loss of a paycheck? Disability income insurance can make sure we survive a traumatic period in our lives with our finances intact.

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