Insurance & Divorce: Your Job: Protecting Your Financial Future:
Becoming disabled could be a financial catastrophe for anyone who is contemplating
self-employment or pursuing advanced degrees or an extended vacation. Consider how
disability insurance can help safeguard your income.
Things you should know about Disability Insurance
There are special coverages available for self-employed people, partners, etc.
Business Overhead Expense Insurance - This policy pays a benefit to cover the
ongoing cost of running your business if you become disabled. Most policies
cover business expenses like rent, utilities, payroll expenses, supplies etc., for a
specific time period -- long enough to keep your offices open while you recover
from your disability.
Buyout Disability Insurance - When a partner or owner of a business is disabled for
an extended period, it's often difficult for the business to continue to operate for a
long period of time. Buyout disability insurance simplifies matters by paying out
benefits to the other partners/owners/operators. These benefits are used to buy out
the interest of their disabled partner, after the disabled partner has been disabled
for a specified period, usually one or two years.
Key Employee Disability Insurance - This protects you in the event one of your key
employees becomes disabled, by paying a benefit to offset the financial loss to
you because of his or her inability to work.
Don't drop your disability coverage because you're taking a sabbatical from work.
If you already own a disability policy and intend to return to work after taking time off to
pursue a degree, for example, dropping your coverage may not be the best choice. You
will probably need disability insurance after you go back to work -- and at that point, you
may not be able to replace your current coverage with as broad a policy.
Thinking Social Security? You may want to think again...
Social Security doesn't provide adequate coverage, in most cases. Social Security does
pay some disability benefits -- but qualifying for them is much harder than most people
realize. Social Security typically pays disability benefits only if you are diagnosed with a
fatal illness, or if your physical or mental disability makes you unable to do any kind of work
for at least 12 months. Even then, you won't receive any Social Security payments for the
first six months after you become disabled. That's not much of a safety net. You'd have a
great deal more protection with your own disability insurance policy.
Your disability benefits could be tax-free
Usually, if you pay for disability insurance with after-tax dollars, any benefits you receive
will be tax-free. Since taxes won't be taken out of your disability insurance payments, you
don't need to replace 100% of your gross income. (That's good, because insurers don't sell
policies that replace 100% of your income; most disability coverage replaces only up to
60% - 70% of your gross income because insurance companies want you to be motivated
to get well and return to work).
| On-line Life Insurance Quotes: | | Do you need life insurance for your divorce? Get your term life insurance rate quote today! That's right! Find out the lowest rate, and don't pay up to 80% more than you should! Use your computer to compare hundreds of companies through BudgetLife! Click Here for an On-line Insurance Quote | | On-line Dental Plan Quotes: | | A selection of 30 Nationwide and regional discount dental plans. With the most dentists in combined networks anywhere, several discount dental plans may be available in your area (find plans). You can use our unique search tools to compare the savings and features of each plan before deciding which is the best plan for you. Click Here for an On-line Dental Plan Quote | | |
|