Disability Insurance for Doctors is an essential piece of financial coverage in today’s modern world for your profession. As a doctor, you have invested a tremendous amount of time, money, and effort gaining the knowledge and skills you need to do your job. Why not protect everything you have done so far?
After making such a commitment to become a doctor, you need to keep these questions in mind:
- “What will I do for income if I can no longer see and treat patients because of an illness or injury?”
- “How long could I and my family
maintain our current lifestyle if I couldn’t work anymore?”
Disability Insurance For Doctors – Why Do I Need It?
- Disability Insurance for Doctors will enable you to continue paying for rent/mortgage, groceries, child care, tuition, entertainment, etc. while you aren’t able to work.
Critical Points to Remember As a Doctor
- Many physicians also own their own business. Doctors can immediately lose their primary source of income if they can’t work. Disability Insurance for Doctors will greatly help you.
- Doctors covered by an employer’s (i.e., hospital, etc.) group policy find that monthly benefits are capped well below their regular income. This restricts their cash flow in the event of illness or injury.
- Because many specialties require specific physical skills to perform procedures, doctors are highly likely to be completely versus partially disabled.
- Doctors are very unlikely to take on other jobs doing anything other than practicing medicine during their recovery time, this ends up extending the disability period.
Special Considerations For Your Disability Insurance Policy
- The definition of Total Disability in your policy should be “Own Occupation”. This means you will be considered disabled if you can’t perform your own occupation, being a doctor, versus any occupation.
- Taking it one step further, your policy should also identify your specialty in the definition. This helps to ensure you maintain financial protection until you can do the exact job you specialize in. This stipulation is very important and must be included.
- The definition of Residual (or Partial) Disability should be “Loss of Income”. While more expensive than “Time & Duties”, Loss of Income ensures your benefit will make up the difference in your pre-disability income up to a set percentage (usually 80%-90%) until you can earn that amount on your own. Because it may take you months to rebuild a practice and client base once you return to work, Loss of Income is necessary to cover your income until things return to normal again.
Depending on your specific circumstances and specialty, additional stipulations may be necessary to ensure your income is protected if you can’t work.
Disability Insurance for Doctors is key to have in order to fully protect yourself in your profession. To discuss your options and customize a policy, please call us at (800) 788-8921 or fill out our brief Contact Form to be contacted by an advisor directly.