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Judy Owen, Contributor, Forbes Magazine

If you don’t have a policy through work or if you need to supplement the one you have, here are some guidelines to consider:

Do you have short-term disability insurance? If not, choose an elimination period that matches the size of your emergency fund. The elimination period is how long you’d have to go before the long term disability coverage kicks in and is typically about 90 days. If you don’t have 90 days worth of savings, you might want to choose a lower elimination period. On the other hand, if you have more savings, a longer elimination period will reduce your premiums.

Do you work in a highly compensated field?If so, you may want to choose an own-occupation policy that pays benefits if your disability prevents you from working in your own occupation even if you can work in another job. These policies are expensive but can make sense if your income is high enough to afford the premiums and to be worth the special protection.

How much coverage do you need? Start by looking at your expenses and think about how some of them might change if you weren’t working. Keep in mind that the benefits from a policy you purchase won’t be taxable and that companies generally won’t insure you for more than 70-80% of your income.

How long do you need the coverage? Make sure the benefits last until you can retire and that the policy is non-cancelable and guaranteed renewable as long as you pay your premiums on time. You may also want a future increase option that allows you to increase the coverage with your income regardless of health changes and a cost-of-living adjustment for your benefits to grow with inflation, especially if you’re young.

Consider a social insurance offset to reduce the cost. This feature reduces your benefits by whatever you’re able to collect from programs like Social Security and workers’ compensation. While the extra income would be nice, it’s probably not worth paying more for benefits you don’t really need.

Shop around. Once you know what features you’re looking for, get quotes from for the best price from multiple carriers since insurers have different ways of rating various occupations and health conditions.

Don’t forget the legal side. Insurance isn’t the only thing you’ll need if you’re incapacitated. Get legal documents like a durable power of attorney and advance health care directive in place before you need them.

Disability doesn’t get the attention of other financial issues like debt, retirement and college expenses or even other types of insurance like health, life, and long term care. Perhaps it’s because the cost is high for something we hope we’ll never need. But the only thing worse than paying for it and not needing it is not paying for it and needing it.

Liz Davidson, Contributor
Forbes Magazine

If I were to ask you what your most valuable financial asset is, what would you say? Your home? Your 401(k)? For most people, it would be their ability to earn a living.

What if I asked you what the biggest threat is to that ability to earn a living? You might think of various ways you could kick the bucket, but it’s been estimated that over the course of your career, you’re 3.5 times more likely to become disabled than to pass away prematurely. In fact, one of our own planners recently experienced a disability in his own family.

Unfortunately, workers’ compensation doesn’t cover the 95% of disabilities that are not work-related and only about 40% of people who apply for Social Security disability benefits are able to qualify due to their notoriously strict standards. Hopefully, you have disability insurance through work, but there are several reasons why this still may not be enough. First, make sure you have a long term policy. Short term policies that cover up to a year are nice to have but according to the American Council of Life Insurers, about 1 in 7 workers will be disabled for more than 5 years. Second, your policy may only cover you if your disability makes you unable to perform any suitable job even if that job pays considerably less than what you make now. Group policies generally cover 60% of your income but there’s often a dollar amount cap on benefits of about $5k a month so you could actually receive less than 60%. Any benefits you receive from an employer-paid policy will also be taxable. Finally, if you leave your job, you generally can’t take your policy with you and you may no longer be able to qualify for an individual policy if your health deteriorates.

Set for Life Insurance is proud to provide special discounts available to Colorado State University veterinary students.

Students in their last two years of veterinary school may purchase up to $2000/month benefit regardless of income. Students may also choose to purchase the minimum size policy of $1000/month benefit with the option to increase it in the future without further medical underwriting.

Veterinarians in their first year of practice may purchase up to $4000/month benefit without any income verification.

Special discounts are available exclusively to applications submitted through Set for Life Insurance. The discounts range from 15-55% depending on gender. Rates are unisex. Since women typically pay 40% or more on their gender distinct rates, the premiums are significantly reduced. The net effect is a 55% reduction.

Policies through Set for Life Insurance have an own occupation definition of disability. This means that if you can’t work in your veterinary specialty, it will pay benefits regardless of income received elsewhere.

Set for Life understand the unique needs of veterinarians. Policies vary for small animal vs. large animal specialties. Additionally, Set for Life can help veterinarians with their business disability insurance needs to cover a loan to purchase a practice or to cover business overhead expenses.

Since Set for Life Insurance is an independent insurance brokerage, they have access to most of the available companies in the disability insurance marketplace and can help you objectively compare the right amount of benefit for your situation.

For more information about disability insurance for veterinarians, for veterinary students at Colorado State University or to request a personalized disability insurance quote comparison, contact Set for Life Insurance today!

Graduating resident physicians from across the country are looking to Set for Life Insurance to take care of their disability insurance needs prior to graduation.

Why Set for Life?

1)      Experience. Set for Life has specialized in working with medical students, residents, fellows and physicians for over 20 years.

2)      Availability of companies and products. Set for Life works as an independent brokerage and has access to most available companies in the marketplace. They will listen to your needs and prepare an unbiased quote comparison suitable for you.

3)      Discounts. Set for Life has the largest portfolio of discounts in the country. Discounts are available in all 50 states. These discounts range from 10% to 55% depending on the company and the situation. Unisex rates are available at numerous hospitals saving women up to 60% on their premiums. Some of the discounted hospitals include Tufts University, Yale University, Colorado State University, Christiana Health, University of Minnesota, University of Colorado, Johns Hopkins University and Washington University in St. Louis.  To obtain the discounted rates, applications must be submitted to Set for Life prior to graduation. These same discounts are also available for medical students, dental students, dental residents, CRNA students and resident fellows.

For more information about disability insurance for resident physicians or to request a free personalized quote comparison, contact Set for Life Insurance today!

by Jeffrey C. Fleischner, JD
Vice President, Set for Life Insurance

Choosing the right beneficiary for your life insurance proceeds, and making the designation correctly are extremely important to effectuate your intentions for the death benefit proceeds after you die.

Policy beneficiary designations should be reviewed by policy holders periodically to ensure that they still reflect the goals policyowner.  The most common problems in the designation of beneficiaries arise after the policyowner is divorced or remarried.  If the policyowner does not update the beneficiary designation, then the wrong individual could collect the life insurance death benefit!

In many situations, spouses designate each other as the beneficiaries of each of their policies.  (You do not have to be married to designate someone as your beneficiary, since the death benefits of the life insurance pass by contract law.)  The designation of a spouse makes sense when there are dependent children whom the surviving spouse is responsible to raise.  The life insurance proceeds will provide the financial basis for the family’s needs to be met.  However, as children mature and eventually become independent, it may make sense to have the adult children listed as beneficiaries.  This decision will depend on the policyowner’s financial situation, and how they have their estate planned.

It is also important to consider whether to name contingent beneficiaries for the life insurance policy.  The contingent beneficiaries will receive the policy death benefit if the primary beneficiaries have already died.  Again, periodically checking these designations are important so that the proceeds go to those individuals that you specify.

If you have any questions about your life insurance policy’s beneficiary designations, then please feel free to contact us.