Disability Insurance

Individual disability insurance benefits are not taxable, because the premiums are paid with after-tax money.

The employer paid disability insurance policies have taxable benefits due to the fact that premiums are paid by the employer with pre-tax money.

There are plenty of companies that provide disability insurance. Some companies have individual disability insurance plans, some have group disability insurance and some have both.

Individual insurance companies: MetLife, Mutual of Omaha, Guardian/ Berkshire, Principal, Ameritas, Assurity, Fidelity Security, Illinois Mutual, and more.

Some of the group disability insurance companies: SunLife, Reliance Standard, Kansas City Life, MetLife, Mutual of Omaha, Illinois Mutual, Washington National, etc.

you can either find a disability attorney to assist you or call and file an appeal claim directly with the short term disability. Is this for Workmen's comp or a federal disability like SSDI or with a insurance company like Aflac?

If you have had a disability insurance policy in place at the time you lost your job due to alcoholism, and are being treated for this condition, following a recovery program prescribed by your doctor, you can qualify to receive disability benefits.

Disability insurance will replace your income loss by paying a monthly benefit in case you are too sick or hurt to be able to work at full capacity or totally disabled.

Not unless your disability is expected to last one year or longer. You can try to apply for Social Security disability, because you won't qualify for individual or workplace disability insurance while disabled.

Yes, if there was an over-assessment of actual monetary use given. Any funds not utilized and if later whether of fault the disabled did not utilize all funds or apply them more frugal if other vehicles of reduced care and access exist but not used.

This may mean if the disabled individual didn't use the vehicle of disable status to full measure garnering reduced care,living and etc expense. Such as assisted control housing, food subsidy programs and otherwise either known or unknowing in rare cases an audit and correction is done and seen that despite information not fully provided upon all features that is required to prevent a reimbursement burden to the disabled. This can be petitioned but pending some states statues of limitations and considerations.

In some cases, any private assistance may be seen as self sufficiency and not requiring full benefit status this may include the income of spouses and or assistance of individuals providing any means that offer some form of expense support. Sadly, more fall victim to this situation - and or a change in regions cost of living expense or if budgetary increases incur in public assistance therefore requires less private disability insurance.

In some cases it may be a conflict of multiple venues of disability support where one agency is demanding another surmount to the weight of higher expenses. Or if the disability insurances is situated or established as a temporary loan and repayment bases if the disability is deemed temporary and capable of rehabilitation.

Your individual disability insurance policy is portable and benefits will not be affected by moving to a different state.

If you have disability insurance through your employer, and move in a new state while working for the same employer, benefits will not be changed. However, if you leave your employer, you may lose the disability insurance benefits through a group DI policy.

If you are currently disabled and are receiving disability benefits from the state, you will have to check with the new state regulations on social security DI;

If you are receiving benefits through a personal/ individual insurance policy from an insurance company, then benefits are not going to be affected by the state of residence.

This definition describes total disability insurance, which pays a disability benefit if you can not work in a job related to your education, training, or experience.

There are other enhanced versions of this definition that describe total disability as "specialty own-occupation" which protects your ability to work in your specialty. If for example you can teach your specialty at a college, you will still get benefits as long as you can't perform the duties of your specialty you were doing before becoming disabled/ incapable to work.

You have to be careful in choosing the definition of your disability insurance plan, because that will decide if you get paid or not.

Disability benefits are received if you are unable to work. Unemployment is paid if you are able to work and actively searching for employment. These two definitions are contradictory, so you won't be able to legally collect disability benefits and unemployment.

Yes, and it's recommended to add supplemental disability insurance to cover closer to 100% of your income.

If you have disability insurance through your employer, your benefit will be capped at 66% of your income. The benefit received from a group disability policy (through your employer) is taxable.

Supplemental disability insurance benefits are not taxable. You can add Catastrophic rider on an individual disability insurance policy, to cover up to 100% of your income in combination with your existing employer group DI.

Anxiety and depression are illnesses that can impair you from working and earning an income. You can get disability insurance policies that incluse anxiety and depression. Some disability insurance policies will limit the mental/nervous benefits to two years. It is wise to check your policy schedule pages to understand when your policy will pay and for how long, if you ever become disabled and impaired to work.

The disability insurance free-look period is a specified timeframe, typically ranging from 10 to 30 days, during which a policyholder can review their policy after purchase. During this time, they can cancel the policy for any reason and receive a full refund of premiums paid. This provision allows individuals to ensure the coverage meets their needs without financial risk. It's an important consumer protection feature in the insurance industry.

You can still receive long-term disability insurance benefits even if you receive rental income. Depending on the definition of the disability included in your contract, some policies may pay a lower benefit, if your passive income exceeds certain % compared to your pre-disability active earnings.

There are relatively few companies that provide disability insurance today. Among these: MetLife, Guardian, Principal, Ameritas, Assurity, Standard, Northwestern Mutual, Unum, Reliance, Fidelity Security, etc.

A good agent can shop all these companies for you and get a comparison to find out which company is the best for your specific situation (occupation, health history, etc).

You should contact Unum to confirm, but almost certainly the answer will be yes. Please note, however, that most group (employer) sponsored disability plans reduce their benefit when Social Security Disability Income is awarded. So depending on the offset method and how the math works, you may find that your Unum benefit reduces to the policy's minimum benefit (typically $50 or $100 per month, or if you are lucky "the greater of $100 or 10% of the Gross Monthly Benefit"). If so, your total income doesn't go up by a whole lot, but you still will be receiving more income from both sources than you would have from your Unum policy alone.

Finally, most group sponsored disability plans only reduce their benefit based on your initial Social Security Disability Income award but not for any SSDI Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) you may receive, which compound annually. So over time you may see your combined income from both sources go up.

Indexed annuity

You do have the option to get an individual plan for Short Term Disability Insurance! The advantage is that if you change jobs, you take the plan with you. Same goes for involuntary job loss, you're still covered if you lose your employment.

Also, some employer plans do not cover off the job injuries or disabilities, while individual plans cover you 24/7 for any illnesses or accidents. You should talk to a good agent (see below) to discuss all options available to you..

No. Pregnancy is normally covered as any other disability, if the short term policy is taken BEFORE you are pregnant.

If you are currently pregnant and get a new short term or long term disability policy, the current pregnancy will be excluded. If you have complications of pregnancy, and get a new policy, the future pregnancies may also be excluded.

It's best to get coverage for short term disability and/or long term disability while you're healthy (and young) since the premiums would be much lower, and you'll have the protection for when you'll need it most. If you're already disabled or sick it's too late to get coverage for that specific disability, but you can still cover other injuries or illnesses.

Talk to a good agent who can help you through this process.

if your long term disability is integrated with social security disability, then yes. This is the case for most employer paid long term disability plans, or your employee benefits package.

If the Long-Term DI policy is an individual plan, not through your employer - you could receive the full base benefit if it's not integraded with Social Security Disability Benefits.

You should consult with a tax specialist, but generally employer paid disability insurance benefits are taxable.

If your Short-Term Disability Insurance policy has an "Own-occupation" definition of disability, and your second job is not related with your main occupation, you could continue receiving short term DI benefits as long as you are still disabled and can't perform your duties of your main job. That being said, your disability benefit may be reduced as a result of the other income, however. Fortunately, many disability policies have incentives to encourage people to work as much as they are safely able, so it's possible that you will still earn more between both sources of income than you would from just one or the other.

It should be noted that if the second job is related and/or the Short Term Disability company can prove that you are able to work at your primary job based on your duties you are performing at your second job, your benefits may stop.

The best place to start is to check your policy definitions and verify that your disability due to injury or sickness is covered on an "own-occ" or own occupation basis, and review what it says about partial disability benefits.

Disability insurance was designed to provide a monthly income or to replace your paycheck in case you can't work due to an illness or accident. Unlike Major Medical health insurance which pays part of the doctors visits fees, medications, treatments cost, the disability insurance benefit can be used for anything you need, like a gap for medical deductibles or co-payments, or utilities, groceries, mortgage payments, or any other expenses including alternative treatments, vacation, etc. There is no limitation on how you should spend your disability insurance benefits.

Some disability insurance policies have additional benefits paid specifically for home adjustments (for example, to make your home wheelchair accessible) - this additional benefits can only be spent for that purpose.