loader
855.DI4.DOCS info@docinsure.com
Doc Insure, LLC

FAQ's

  • FAQ's

Most often, discounts on disability insurance are tied to your current or recent medical school, residency program, fellowship program, or employer affiliation. If making a transition, the timing can often give you more discounted options for a very brief time and requires fast action. Also, discounts vary by insurance company and can be anywhere from 10% to around 50% off! You always want to make sure that you are getting the best discounted rates from each insurance company before making a final decision. We always look for any and every discount opportunity you may have and often find ones that are not as evident as others.

No one insurance company is the best option for every doctor in every situation. The only way to have a great shot at making the best decision for you is to research every option that will protect the income you make from your specific duties and responsibilities and to evaluate every discount opportunity, appropriate benefit amount, desired riders or features of each company's policy, and the financial health as well as the claim's satisfaction and history of each company. If that sounds fun to you...be our guest! Otherwise, we'll provide you with all of that and more in order to help you get your disability insurance right the first time!

In order to understand the critical nature of getting disability insurance, you can think about it in two ways:

  1. Protecting your largest financial asset - For nearly every doctor, the largest financial asset you own isn't a car or a house or even a real estate property. The most valuable asset you own is...you! Your training and ability to work as a doctor in your field can be worth several million dollars up to tens of millions of dollars. Through this perspective, an injury or illness that would prevent you from practicing medicine in your field could dwindle your future income to half or less of its original value or cause it to even be worthless!
  2. Protecting the return on your most costly investment - Every investment is made with the expectation of a valuable return. No one will invest in anything that will not provide a reward for the investment. In a doctor's life the investment into your training of money, time, and energy is made with the calculated hope of a future return. This return can be intangible, such as the satisfaction of helping people or glory of researching and discovering a medical breakthrough, or tangible such as the financial freedom and opportunities afforded by your expected physician income. Through this perspective, protecting your income means ensuring a good return or reward on one of the most costly and strategic investments you'll ever make!

In most cases, this is correct. However, relying on your employer's disability insurance can prove to be one of the most costly financial mistakes a doctor can make for reasons that most doctors don't know about until it's too late:

Employer disability insurance is, most likely, taxable. This means that should you become disabled, you will not receive the full benefit but an after-tax benefit which will be much lower than the stated benefit amount you would most likely be expecting.

Employer disability insurance is almost never true, own-occupation (specialty-specific) protection. This means that if you are disabled from an injury or illness and can't practice medicine in your field but can still do any other job (librarian, teacher, etc.), you will almost always receive a diminished benefit from your employer's coverage or in some cases, no benefit at all!

Employer disability insurance isn't portable. This means that if you ever leave your employer (which most doctors do at some point in their careers), you may be left without income protection or at best, if you are older and/or your health has changed, you may be forced to get your own coverage at that time that may be extremely expensive or unavailable to you.