January 23, 2009, Newsletter Issue #44: It's Important for Professionals to Have Own Occupation Disability Insurance

Tip of the Week

Although a wonderful option for many employed persons, own occupation disability insurance coverage can be extremely important, if not critical, to medical and other professionals. Most group, government, and some individual disability insurance coverage define a covered disability as the inability to perform the duties of your occupation. However, the language often provides that, once you are able to perform the duties of “any gainful occupation”, your eligibility for disability benefits has ended and monthly insurance income will cease.

In the universe of office workers, from junior employee to senior management, brick-and-mortar retailers, or e-commerce employees, this definition of disability is often not an issue. However, if you are a highly skilled medical or other professional, an own occupation definition of disability may be the difference between financial stability and crisis. Own occupation insurance means you will normally be considered to be disabled until you can return to the performance of your own specialty. Therefore, an own occupation period of benefits may be substantially longer than coverage that uses any occupation definition of disability.

Highly skilled and compensated professionals must take care not to risk their most important asset - their ability to generate substantial earnings both now and in the future. For these reasons, most experts consider own occupation disability insurance language to be of great importance to medical and other professionals.

The above-listed tip is for informational use only. Refer to your insurance policy contract for specific information regarding your coverage and for actual terms, conditions and exclusions. The above statements are general in nature and may or may not reflect the actual terms of your insurance policy.

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