{"id":8572,"date":"2021-09-02T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/?p=8572"},"modified":"2021-09-02T03:39:47","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T10:39:47","slug":"disability-insurance-just-the-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/disability-insurance-just-the-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Disability Insurance: Just the Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Insurance protects your employees and their families against any unexpected financial losses. <em>Health insurance <\/em>protects against unexpected health expenses, and <em>life insurance <\/em>gives your employees\u2019 families financial security after an unexpected passing. But what about disability insurance? What is it, and why is it important to offer to your employees? <\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what you need to know about it.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal\">What is disability insurance?<\/h3>\n<p><em>Disability insurance, <\/em>also known as <em>disability income insurance <\/em>or <em>income protection insurance, <\/em>is a type of coverage that replaces a portion of your employees\u2019 income if an injury or illness prevents them from working. Disability insurance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Provides financial security for your employees and their loved ones<\/li>\n<li>Gives funds to your employees to use for whatever they like<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal\">Is it the same thing as health insurance?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0in;margin-right: 0in;margin-bottom: 0in;vertical-align: baseline;padding-left: 0in\">Not exactly. <span style=\"border: none windowtext 1.0pt\">Disability insurance&nbsp;<\/span>replaces a portion of an employee\u2019s income lost due to not being able to work because of injuries or illnesses. In contrast, health insurance covers medical expenses that arise due to an injury or illness.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal\">What does disability insurance cover? <strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>While people may think of major injuries as the only thing disability insurance covers, here are just a few of the things disability insurance might cover:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Arthritis<\/li>\n<li>Back pain<\/li>\n<li>Cancer<\/li>\n<li>Depression<\/li>\n<li>Diabetes<\/li>\n<li>Heart disease<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t mean injuries like sprains and fractures aren\u2019t disabling. What it does mean is the scope of injuries that can prevent people from earning an income is broad.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal\">Why is disability insurance important?<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/news\/press\/factsheets\/basicfact-alt.pdf\">A massive <em>68%<\/em> of non-government workers carry no form of disability insurance.<\/a> With this in mind, here is why disability insurance is essential to offer\u2014and necessary for employees to have.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10px\"> <\/span><strong>Injuries are all too common: <\/strong> The chance of missing months or years of work seems remote. But more than one in four 20-year-olds will experience a disability for 90 days or more before they reach 67, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/news\/press\/factsheets\/basicfact-alt.pdf\">according to the Social Security Administration<\/a>. Disability insurance covers those \u201cwhat-if\u201d or worst-case scenarios.<strong style=\"background-color: transparent\">&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10px\"> <\/span><strong>Disability insurance covers risk: <\/strong>People tend to shrug off the risk because they think only about worst-case scenarios. But the <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilitycanhappen.org\/disability-statistic\/\">leading causes of disability claims<\/a> are:<br \/>&nbsp;\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10px\"> <\/span>Pregnancy<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10px\"> <\/span>Cancer<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10px\"> <\/span>Mental health issues<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10px\"> <\/span>Musculoskeletal disorders affecting knees, back, and hips<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10px\"> <\/span>Digestive disorders such as hernias and gastritis<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"background-color: transparent\">Injuries including fractures, sprains, and muscle\/ligament strains<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> Disability insurance covers the risk involved with being affected by injuries, situations, or illnesses.<br \/>\n <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It prepares employees for long-term challenges: <\/strong>It\u2019s common to plan ahead and think about how far you can go without one or two paychecks. However, not enough people plan for possible long-term or future challenges. <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilitycanhappen.org\/disability-statistic\/\"><span style=\"color: windowtext\">A study of <\/span>consumer bankruptcy<span style=\"color: windowtext\"> filings<\/span><\/a> found that the primary reasons for bankruptcy involved illness or injury of themselves or a family member.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilitycanhappen.org\/disability-statistic\/\">Also, workers\u2019 compensation and Social Security do not cover most financial challenges<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: black\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/archives\/osh_11042020.pdf\">The Bureau of Labor Statistics report for 2020<\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: black\"> found that in the previous year of 2019, 2.8 million non-fatal workplace injuries occurred. To put this in perspective, <\/span><span style=\"color: black\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/pdf\/work.pdf\">118.3 million people worked full-time in 2019<\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: black\">, which means 2.4% of all workers in 2019 sustained some type of workplace-related injury.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: black\"><a href=\"https:\/\/workerscompensationexperts.org\/workers-comp\/\">Workers\u2019 compensation<\/a> only pays if the injury is directly workplace-related, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawyers.com\/legal-info\/workers-compensation\/how-long-will-it-take-for-my-workers-comp-claim-to-get-approved-or-denied.html\">it can take, on average, two to three weeks<\/a> to hear if a workmans&#8217; compensation claim has been approved or denied.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: black\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.alllaw.com\/articles\/nolo\/disability\/calculating-payment.html\">The average Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefit as of 2021<\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: black\"> was $1,277 a month.&nbsp;That equals $15,324 annually \u2014 <\/span><span style=\"color: black\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aspe.hhs.gov\/topics\/poverty-economic-mobility\/poverty-guidelines\">barely above the poverty guideline<\/a><\/span><span style=\"color: black\"> of $12,880 for a one-person household and below $17,420 for a two-person household. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> Disability insurance gives employees an extra layer of protection to help prepare them and their families for any long-term challenges.<br \/>\n <\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: normal\"><span style=\"color: black;background-color: white\">Consider offering disability insurance benefits<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span><span style=\"color: black;background-color: white\">Absence of emergency savings and rising medical costs are a concern for many employees.<\/span><\/span><span><\/span><span style=\"color: black;background-color: white\"> Without added income protection, people may experience severe financial difficulty if they miss work due to injury or illness. Consider adding disability insurance benefits to your employee benefits package and be sure to talk to a trusted advisor to learn more. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Content provided by&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.q4intel.com\/employers\/\"><em>Q4iNetwork<\/em><\/a><em>&nbsp;and partners<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Photo by <span> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.123rf.com\/profile_Elnur\">Elnur<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/track.hubspot.com\/__ptq.gif?a=1652561&amp;k=14&amp;r=https%3A%2F%2Finsights.q4intel.com%2Femployers%2Fdisability-insurance-just-the-facts&amp;bu=https%253A%252F%252Finsights.q4intel.com%252Femployers&amp;bvt=rss\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" style=\"min-height:1px!important;width:1px!important;border-width:0!important;margin-top:0!important;margin-bottom:0!important;margin-right:0!important;margin-left:0!important;padding-top:0!important;padding-bottom:0!important;padding-right:0!important;padding-left:0!important\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Insurance protects your employees and their families against any unexpected financial losses. Health insurance protects against unexpected health expenses, and life insurance gives your employees\u2019 families financial security after an unexpected passing. But what about disability insurance? What is it, and why is it important to offer to your employees? Here\u2019s what you need to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/disability-insurance-just-the-facts\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Disability Insurance: Just the Facts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":310,"featured_media":8575,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinnaclehrs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}