I feel this topic to be so important that I am including it below. We posted this on Home Office Finance this morning.
One blog which I have come to enjoy and try to read whenever it hits my RSS reader is Get Rich Slowly. This blog is great for the simple fact its tagline is right on. “Personal finance that makes cents.”
And today’s post is no exception. The disability insurance maze: how to select and purchase a policy hit my RSS reader this morning. As we are warned, it is a very long post, but its an important topic. I could not agree more about its importance. Disability insurance is one of those items many of us overlook. And this type of insurance is really important for the self employed and the home office warrior.
Take the time to read this great post and take it as a serious issue we should consider.
I have got admit that I do not have disability insurance. I have thought about it a number of times because the truth of the matter we are probably more likely to need disability insurance than life insurance. My Dad, however, was a physician, but he was still a solo. He always maintained disability insurance, and paid large premiums for maybe 30 years. He came down with cancer. They were able to remove it by removing a kidney. He was off of work for months. Afterwards, he was placed on necessary meds that caused a trimmer in his hand. He was a surgeon. The disability company refused to pay for either the time off for the actual cancer treatments or afterwards for the trimmer. He ended up retiring because he could not operate. The problem, as we found out then, was that most of these disability policies require you to be unable to work at anything. If you can still be a Greeter at Wal-Mart, even though you chosen occupation is that of a surgeon, that is too bad, they do not have to pay. At least this is true for the solo. In my Dad’s case they would have only had to pay for a few years until he reached social security and Medicare age, which I did not think was bad for 30 years of premiums, but you have to think that insurance has developed into a very corrupt business. At least that is my opinion.
Good point Chuck. I don’t have any DI either.