CJ Fox: At CPA, we offer a variety of products to help the professional offer the best solution for their clients. One of the things that we want to look at when we’re offering disability insurance, are the definitions.
What does it mean for an own occupation or a presumptive total disability? Those definitions vary from company to company, so it’s imperative to look at the verbiage of those to make sure that that fits the client.
For instance, there’s a definition called own occupation and among the about 30 companies that are in the nation here, only six actually offer an own occupation definition. What that means is, if I’m a surgeon for instance, and I’m performing surgeries and I’m doing clinics every day, but then I develop a brain tumor and I develop shakes in my hands, I can no longer be a surgeon. That disallows me from being able to continue with my career.
When I go on claim, I can actually go back to work and be a professor at the medical school, having my benefits offset. That’s really important to a lot of people being able to still be on claim and receive 100% of their benefits and still be able to go back to work in something that they enjoy.
Disability insurance is going to cover about 60% of your income tax free. For instance, if you earn normally $100,000 a year … Let’s say you’re in a 35% tax bracket. You’re bringing home about $65,000 of that $100,000. You go on claim with a disability policy and you would be receiving $60,000 a year tax free. So, you’re just about made whole in that scenario.