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:
- Total and Partial Disability reduction in benefits if the insured is found to be partially disabled instead of totally disabled.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- RESIDUAL DISABILITY many policies pay for the unused portion of the total disability period, limited to age 65.
Popular Insurance Terms
Coverage for small groups that cannot meet the underwriting standards of true group insurance. Even though the franchise insurance covers an entire group, individual policies are written on ...
Two basic kinds of policies sold by health insurance companies: medigap insurance (medicare supplementary insurance); and medicare wraparound ...
Plan under the employee retirement income security act of 1974 (ERISA) for employees who are less than 50% vested. An employee must be permitted to buy back retirement benefits lost because ...
Difference between the yield on earning assets and the cost of interest-bearing liabilities. ...
Coverage for less than one year. Insurers generally charge higher rates for short-term policies than for longer term insurance, such as an annual policy, because of the need to recoup ...
Powers of an agent delegated by an insurance company and shown in the form of a document. ...
Chance that an event will occur. The foundation of insurance is probability and statistics. By pooling a large number of homogeneous exposures an insurance company can predict with a given ...
Method of pricing property and liability insurance. It uses charges and credits to modify a class rate based on the special characteristics of the risk. Insurers have been able to develop a ...
Provision in workers compensation insurance under which an employee who incurs an injury in another state, and elects to come under the law of his home state, will retain coverage under the ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.