Disability Income Insurance

Definition of "Disability income insurance"

Health insurance that provides income payments to the insured wage earner when income is interrupted or terminated because of illness, sickness, or accident. Definitions under this insurance include:

  1. Total and Partial Disability reduction in benefits if the insured is found to be partially disabled instead of totally disabled.
  2. Amount of Benefits many policies stipulate that all sources of disability income cannot exceed 50% to 80% of the insured's earnings prior to the disability, subject to a maximum absolute dollar amount.
  3. Duration of Benefits length of time benefits will be paid. Some policies will pay benefits for one or two years, whereupon the insured must agree to be retrained for other work. Other policies pay benefits as long as the insured is unable to do the job for which he or she is suited by training, education, and experience (often up to age 65, when retirement programs take over). Some policies pay lifetime benefits.
  4. ELIMINATION PERIOD (Waiting Period) period beginning with the first day of disability, during which no payments are made to the insured. The longer this period, the lower the premiums.
  5. Physician's Care the insured must be regularly attended by a legally qualified physician because it is necessary to assess changes in severity of disability.
  6. PREEXISTING CONDITION if an insured has a preexisting injury, sickness, or illness, most policies will not pay income benefits either for the duration of the policy or until a period of time (usually from six months to one year) has elapsed.
  7. Recurrent Disability most policies will not pay income benefits to an insured who is experiencing a recurrent disability unless the recurrent disability is deemed a new disability. Some more progressive policies define a recurrent disability as a new disability if there has been a break of at least six months between the first disability and the current disability, and the insured has returned to work during that break.
  8. RESIDUAL DISABILITY many policies pay for the unused portion of the total disability period, limited to age 65.

image of a real estate dictionary page

Have a question or comment?

We're here to help.

*** Your email address will remain confidential.
 

 

Popular Insurance Terms

Combination of two basic plans: accumulating units of paid-up permanent life insurance, and decreasing units of group term life insurance. The premium paid each month consists of the (a) ...

Group of insurers or re insurers involved in joint underwriting. Members typically take predetermined shares of premiums, losses, expenses, and profits. Syndicates, more common in ...

Supplemental coverage written into or endorsed onto many business and personal liability policies. Covers medical costs and loss of income of persons injured on an insured's property, ...

Coverage when a director or officer of a company commits a negligent act or omission, or misstatement or misleading statement, and a successful libel suit is brought against the company as ...

Coverage by at least two insurance policies providing the same coverage for the same risk. ...

Lowest acceptable criteria that a risk must meet in order to be insurable. For example, life insurance companies require an applicant for individual (nongroup) coverages to be free of ...

Date at which insurance protection begins. ...

Irrevocable trust into which the grantor places assets and receives in turn a fixed amount of income from a fixed annuity (amount of income stipulated at the time the trust is established) ...

in health insurance, reimbursement for an insured's medically related expenses, including room and board, surgery, medicines,anesthetics, ambulance service to and from a hospital, ...

Popular Insurance Questions