If You Couldn't Work, Could You Maintain Your Lifestyle?
If you work for a living, your lifestyle depends on your ability to earn an income. Which means your standard of living could be seriously threatened if you couldn't work.
Will Social Security and other government benefits protect your financial well-being? Don't count on it.
The fact is, social insurance programs are built on exceedingly strict definitions of disability. And on lengthy service requirements.
The bottom line? You may be ill-prepared for the financial hardships a lengthy illness of injury can bring. For as Robert Hunder, president of the National Insurance Consumer Organization warns, "Disability insurance is the only kind of insurance people have too little of."
It Can Happen to You
Every 19 seconds someone is injured in an auto accident.
Every 17 seconds someone is injured at work.
Every 4 seconds someone is injured in some kind of accident.
In fact, disability from either injury or illness is a far greater threat than most people realize.
- For example, for a 32-year old, a serious disability (three months or longer) is 6 1/2 times more likely than death.
- Only 3% of mortgage foreclosures are caused by death, 48% are caused by disability.
Just How Likely is Disability?
Likely enough to make it worth worrying about. Consider these statistics:
Those are your chances of suffering a disabling illness or injury, based on the experience of companies selling disability income insurance. The other part of the picture is
the potential length of a long term disability.
Once a disability reaches long-term status - that is, once you've been laid up for 90 days or longer - it could very well last several years.
To put those numbers in perspective, let's compare the likelihood of a disabling illness or injury with a risk you've probably already dealt with - the chances of dying prematurely.
Throughout your career,
the possibility of suffering a long-term disability is several times greater than the possibility of death.
The Financial Realities of a Long-Term Disability.
First Reality: The most likely scenario duing a long-term disability is rising expenses - medical and other bills related to the disability itself - and falling income - because you can't work. Unfortunately, rising expenses plus falling income equals trouble.
Second Reality: Most people don't realize just how valuable their ability to earn an income is over an extended period of time:
It's really true that your health is your wealth.
