Veterinarians Disability Insurance

Set for Life Insurance specializes in helping medical professionals including veterinary students and veterinarians. This includes veterinarians working, with small animals as well as large animals, horses, farm animals and zoo animals.

As a veterinarian, your most valuable asset is the ability to earn an income. A sickness or injury could be devastating to you financially if you could no longer work.

Here is a guide for veterinarians looking to insure their income with an individual disability policy:

Disability Insurance Specific to Your Specialty

As a veterinarian, it is critical that you choose a definition of disability that covers you in your veterinary specialty. This means if you become too sick or injured to work in your veterinary specialty, you can still work in another veterinary specialty or occupation and continue to receive benefits.

Some policies refer to this as own occupation, regular occupation or your occupation. The most important thing is that it will pay you a monthly benefit if you couldn’t practice as a veterinarian even if you could work in another occupation. With this type of policy, there is no reduction of benefits if you decide to work elsewhere.


Group Benefits vs. an Individual Policy

If you work for a large group or practice, you may be offered a group policy. Usually you cannot opt out of taking the policy. Group policies typically offer a limited monthly benefit (60 percent of your income to a maximum amount). Group policies can’t discriminate – they must offer coverage to everyone in the group. Consequently, they often lack the important provisions of a personal policy.

Get Veterinarian Disability Insurance by requesting a free quote today!


Reduce Your Premium

If you are concerned about paying for your disability insurance while you finish your residency or become established, there are several things we can do to reduce your premium as much as possible.

  • Discounts. Set for Life Insurance has discounts at many of the veterinary schools around the country including Colorado State University. These discounts can be significant, especially to women since the rates are unisex.  Once you have the discount on the policy, they will apply to any increases in the future.
  • Association discounts. Set for Life Insurance offers discounts to several veterinary associations around the country. This can save you an extra 10% on your premiums.
  • Work with an independent broker. Rates vary substantially from company to company for veterinarians. This is primarily because of the way companies classify veterinarians. Some companies consider veterinarians a great risk, thus reducing their premiums.
  • Specify if you work with small or large animals. Small animal veterinarians will pay a lot less in premiums as they are considered a more favorable risk to the insurance companies and charge less.
  • Some companies allow a “graded” or increasing premium. This is initially less expensive and your premium will increase each year. If you wish to lock it in at a later time, you may do so on any policy anniversary.
  • You may choose to simply supplement what your group policy already offers and load up your policy with increase options. This will allow you to keep your premium low during residency and still reserve the right to increase it in the future without any medical underwriting.

Disability Insurance For Veterinarians as Business Owners

Oftentimes when practicing veterinary medicine, you are also running your own business.

While individual disability insurance will cover your personal income, it does not cover your business expenses. Therefore, you may need to consider Business Overhead Expense (BOE) Insurance. BOE will cover your business expenses such as payroll, rent, etc… if you are too sick or injured to work.

Additionally, if you are buying into a practice, you may be required to take out a disability policy to cover your loan. There are disability policies available to cover the term of your loan. For instance, if you have a 7 year loan and become disabled in the first year, the policy would pay the lender the remainder of your loan.

Are you ready? Get set - for life!

Dr. Vu T., Cardiologist, Washington, DC

I realized after contacting Set for Life Insurance, I did not need to shop elsewhere.  They did all of the legwork and simplified the process for me. Thank you, Set For Life!

We’re here to help

Getting the right disability insurance can be downright confusing. At Set For Life, we’ll help you understand the options and work with you to select just the right product for you and your family. These articles will help you understand some of the complexities involved, but we’re happy to walk you through it! If you’re ready to get set, reach out for a quote today!