Disability Insurance for Chiropractors

Short term disability insurance is exactly what it sounds like which is disability insurance designed to protect an individual from suffering from a financial loss due to some type of “short term” injury or disease.

Examples where a short term disability insurance policy could come in handy might include:

• Recovering from an injury such as a broken bone.
• Or recovering from a medical issue that may require some time to heal or recover such as from a but isn’t going to cause any permanent form of disability such as:
  • A bacterial or viral infection,
  • Or perhaps a mild heart attack or stroke,
  • Early stage cancer diagnosis,
  • Etc.

In fact, when you really begin to think about it, there are actually a lot more circumstances where you might become temporarily disabled rather than permanently.

But the problem is…

...short term disability insurance policies are only going to provide financial relief for a relatively short period of time.  And while they do tend to cost less than a long term disability insurance policy, do you really want to find yourself in a situation where you are suffering from an illness and/or injury, and now need to worry about when your benefits will be disappearing?

Probably not, which is why, we’ll generally recommend that most chiropractors first look at the cost and benefits of a long term disability insurance policy first.  This way they will be able to determine whether or not it makes sense to settle on a less expensive short term disability insurance policy vs actually being insured for a longer period of time.

Long term disability insurance policies are designed to provide coverage for the remainder of ones working career.  And while these types of policies will generally cost more than a short term disability insurance policy, they will provide one with the security of knowing that their coverage will last a lot longer.

Now up until…now, we really haven’t focused on anything too complex or “earth shattering”.  Short term disability insurance provides coverage for a short period of time while long term disability coverage provides coverage for a long time… makes sense… right?

But now we want to focus…

...on where things can get a bit “vague”.  And it is here where a lot of folks will often make a mistake when purchasing their disability insurance.  In this section of our article, we want to focus on the difference between one’s Own occupation coverage vs Any occupation coverage. 

The terms Own and Any occupation will apply to both short term and long term disability insurance policies and will be specifically defined within the disability insurance policy that you ultimately decide on purchasing.

The first thing that you want to do once you are insured is to immediately review your entire disability insurance policy and be sure that you review exactly what type of “occupational” coverage your policy provides.

Why is this so important?

That’s easy, because if you choose to purchase a disability insurance policy that uses the “any” occupation definition, you will only be able to receive your disability benefits if you are unable to perform “any” kind of job.

Meaning, it’s quite possible that you could become sick or injured, and this sickness or injury could prevent you from being able to perform your duties as a chiropractor, but that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t perform the duties required as a “greeter” at Walmart (Nothing against “greeters” at Walmart, we’re just assuming that the qualifications to become a “greeter” are not as stringent as they are to become a licensed chiropractor in your state).

Which would therefore mean, that you would not qualify for your disability benefit because you could “theoretically” be able to perform another job other than being a chiropractor.

So, in order to be able to qualify for your disability benefits with a “own occupation” definition, you would only need to demonstrate that you cannot perform your duties as a chiropractor in order to be able to qualify for coverage.

This is why…It’s so important to work with an insurance agency like TermLife2Go who offers both short term and long term disability insurance policies that provide both Own and Any occupation definitions so that you can not only compare pricing from multiple different insurance carriers, you can also determine which insurance company is going to provide you with the “best” coverage to meet your needs!

Our goal at TermLife2Go isn’t to “sell” you a disability insurance policy, it’s only to help you decide which disability insurance policy is going to be right for you.  So, what are you waiting for?  Give us a call today and see what we can do for you!