Disability Income (DI) Insurance

Hello and good morning, treasure coast. This is Gary Owen, the host of the quality-of-life radio show. And welcome to this extraordinary Tuesday morning show. This is, again, the world-famous quality of life radio show. And I'm happy to have my co-host with me.  

We have a power packed show. Because in these 30 minutes, we don't want you to change the dial. And you can certainly listen in on the other venues that Gary just mentioned, but we bring relevant content to our listeners. Gary, we do have fun. We try to make it lively and fun and power packed and all that, but we share our knowledge, our experience. Straight talk information about insurance planning. We believe in transparency, good old fashioned straight talk. The no plop zone, as we've termed it because things can be so convoluted, especially insurance. We do everything we can to help improve people's quality of life through insurance planning. And we simplify the insurance planning so people can live a stress-free life and get it checked off their bucket list, off their things to do. Straight talk and transparency is what we do because we know that there are a lot of nefarious players out there trying to abscond with your Social Security, your Medicare number, trying to get you enrolled in a plan that maybe is not the best fit for you. So, this is why you have a local independent insurance agency in your backyard and here on the Treasure Coast, Florida. And in fact, we cover the entire state of Florida and 42 other states. We can assist you no matter where you're at. But it's great to have a hometown agency that has your best interest at heart. Before we go further, today we're going to talk a little bit about protecting your paycheck. What's that about? That's very good and we're going to show you how to do it. We're going to let you know how much it's going to cost you, and let’s give the quote of the day to get started. It's about being brave. Like Braveheart. Be brave enough.to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others. Man, we go through life so many people go through life worrying about what other people think of them. That's Right. And if you never stand up for something with the old saying, you'll fall for everything.  

And if you don't plan your life, somebody else will. The great thing is about here on the Treasure Coast and there are so many great businesses and great people and great networking organizations, the chambers of commerce and so forth to help us to grow our businesses. So that's probably a topic for another day. But we certainly had the Better Business Bureau here recently and talking about how to grow and support your business. I feel that Owen Insurance Group is not just an independent insurance agency. We are here as a great resource for our residents here in the state of Florida.  

We're going to talk a little bit about Disability Income (DI) insurance protecting your paycheck. Everyone who's working and who's depending on a paycheck should have DI protection. People, somewhat like in Vegas, are taking the dice and throwing it and hoping to God they don't get sick or don't get injured. That's right. But I'm going to give you some statistics and how frequently it happens and how could happen to you. So, if you're like one of the millions of Americans who unexpectedly become unable to work each year due to an illness or an injury, the last thing you want to worry about, of course, is how to continue paying your bills without that paycheck, without your much needed income. To me, Tom, I think that your ability to earn an income is the number one asset that we have, your ability to earn an income. And if you don't have that ability because of an illness or an accident, then obviously you've got a problem. We have solutions to those types of problems.  Also, there's a common misconception about disability income where people think that the sole purpose is to cover catastrophic accidents. Well, I'm here to tell you that there are disability plans that only cover disability related to accidents, but also there are plans that cover both accident and sickness. So, you have the opportunity and the option to choose both because we don't know if we're going to have an accident, we're going to need it, or for an illness. It's important to have both covered. And like I said, we're going to share some of those statistics. Cancer, critical, or chronic illnesses are far more serious sicknesses that can impact your ability to work and financially support yourself and your family. What we recommend is a personal owned disability income insurance policy. Ok, let's get to right to the statistics. Right now, we're looking at 90% of all disability claims are caused by illness. Not accident or injury, but illness. Imagine had you had COVID, and you had a disability policy, and you couldn't work for a few weeks or months. How would you pay your bills? Again, there are two types of disability plans - short term and a long-term disability insurance plans, and we'll cover that in just a second. 10% of disabilities are due to illness. 90% to sickness and 10% to injury.  For you 20-year-olds out there who say I'm Superman, nothing's going to happen to me, one in four of today's 20-year-olds will become disabled before retiring. In 2021, there were over 62 million injuries costing over $1.2 billion. 62 million injuries.  

Man, I tell you what, the statistics are high that you're going to get an injury or an accident, right? And let’s talk about Florida for just a second, because we know there's over 1000 people a day moving to Florida. So, in Florida, of course, what happens? You’ll get more car crashes. 382,000 car crashes last year in 2022, 382,000 car crashes with 243,000 injuries. Another 1000 people on average per day Tom are moving down to Florida, and the roads are getting even busier. But could you imagine, though, how many of those 234,000 people that got in a car accident last year wished they had disability insurance help? And the question you ask yourself is, do I need short term or long term? It really depends. And some people have both. Because if you are on a maternity leave or you have COVID and you're out for a month, maybe two months, it's great to have a short-term medical plan to cover a short-term disability plan to cover those types of illnesses. The biggest difference between a short term and a long term disability insurance policy is the period of time that you would receive benefits again, and that's called the benefit period. If we're looking at a short term policy, those typically run from seven to 26 weeks. It replaces 40% to 70% of your base income, and they have short waiting periods or elimination periods. It could be from zero to 21 days. And of course, Tom, what happens to the premium the longer you go out on an elimination period? The lower the premium. Very good.

Now, long term disability insurance, those plans vary anywhere from over two years, five years, ten years to retirement age. You can even put in there that you want an illustration or a quote on turning 65. It replaces 40% to 60% of your base income. And the most common waiting period on these long-term disability plans are 90 days. There's a little story I want to tell. It's about Iggy, who's behind the camera here. Iggy told me that he went out and bought a “money machine” and he keeps it in his closet. Nobody knows where Iggy's money machine is located, but it’s somewhere in his home.  Every single day Iggy goes to his closet, puts in a couple of shekels and out comes hundreds of dollars for that day. Isn't that pennies on the dollar, right? So he is smiling, he's happy. I can see that he's grinning ear to ear right now. It's great. Every single day he goes to the closet and gets his money machine and puts a few pennies in, gets few hundred dollars out every single day. But one day the money machine is broke. He goes to it, can't get the money out. It's done. Toast. The problem now is Iggy didn't have insurance on his money machine, so he can no longer get money and withdraw money from his wonderful money machine. So that analogy is if you don't have your paycheck protected and that day comes where you can no longer work, where's the money coming from? Protect your money machine, people. That is your number one asset. You would not have a car, you would not have a home and you would not have the things that you have if you weren't able to work. Provide an income and a living for yourself and for your family. Protecting it is very simple stuff. Protect your ability to earn a paycheck, and you do that with a long term or short-term disability. In fact, I have just put an application in for myself for a long-term policy to age 65. It's great to have those types of policies and provide peace of mind. And I think there's a misnomer that people feel that insurance is too expensive. Tom we hear this all the time. Life insurance. I'm not going to get life insurance. It's too expensive. So when you actually go and run the quotes. People are like, oh my God, I didn't realize it was that affordable. That's right. So you have to get out of your own way. Call Owen Insurance Group at 772-210-1020 and ask for a quote. How much does it cost or what do we charge to provide insurance illustrations? Well, we don't charge anything for a quote, for our time, consultation, advice, and/or recommendations.  

It is absolutely amazing the quality of service we can provide at no cost to you. Again, as I said previously, it's about being a resource in your community. Think about all the things that we do, yes, Medicare, life, health, long term care, disability insurance, annuities, dental, vision, cancer, critical illness, accident insurance, you name it, we do it. But today we definitely want to focus and get the message out how important it is to have disability insurance. And by the way, what factors are there that can impact the cost of your policy, of your disability insurance policy? Well, do you think that an office worker, Tom, is going to pay the same rate as a construction worker on a 50-story building? Or someone who's out flying airplanes, or a police officer or scuba divers and things of that nature?  

I would say that the person who has the job that has more risk would pay a higher premium. That's my guess. Gary, spot on. So, it depends on your classification. Your work will depend on your premiums being either low or being higher than usual because of your hazardous occupation. So obviously we know somebody who sits in a office chair all day typing, office staff, or an insurance agent is very low risk. We may have risk of getting carpal tunnel, or paper cut, but we don't have to worry about falling out of a window or falling off of a building. We're crashing, we're dying due to cause asphyxia being in an airplane or scuba diving, what have you. So again, it's really about your hazardous occupations and how much disability you can get and can you qualify for. So, to answer that question, you really need to start by estimating your current monthly living expenses, Tom. What would that be? Housing, utilities, gas, insurance for your car, food., cell phone, maybe your savings, retirements and things of that nature, right? All of those things that you've got to consider. Also, other factors to consider is how long can you wait before benefits begin? Because there are 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180 day elimination periods. The longer the elimination period, the lower the premiums. And again, as I said earlier, and I mentioned that 90 days is the average benefit period.  

How long do you need the benefits to last? Benefit period, the elimination period. You want them to last two years, five years, ten years, up until you retire to age 65? Those factors are taken into consideration on the cost of the policy. Also guaranteed renewable, right? So that's another issue. Let's see, let's talk a little bit about the types of riders that you can add to a disability policy. Now remember, typically every time you add a rider to your base policy, the premiums are going to be little higher. For example, waiver of premium. If you stop working due to a sickness and you have the waiver of premium rider on your policy, the time that you're disabled and sick, you would not have to pay those premiums. However, you pay a higher premium to have the waiver of premium rider on there. They have hospice care benefits, unemployment premium, suspensions, occupational rehab and modification and access benefit endorsements, future increase options, cost of living adjustments, catastrophic disability benefits, student loan protection rider, retirement protection riders, and so forth. There are many riders that you can have typically we don't add that many riders. What I'd like to do is start with the base premium. So, let's talk real quick, then go right to the base premium. If you're a 46 year old male, you're not a tobacco user, and you're earning about $75,000 a year, and you're an office worker. Let's say that you're an office worker and you're going to choose a 90-day elimination period. Your benefit period, is going to be to age 65. So this 46 year old male is going to be covered by this long term disability until he turns age 65, when at that point, Tom, he typically would get enrolled in Social Security and Medicare. Yes and Medicare. All right, so. What would it cost for that particular policy? A long term disability policy is running $107.95 a month with one company. Another company is charging $187.13 a month. There's a very significant difference between one carrier to the next. So that's why it's important that you do your due diligence. How do you do your due diligence? You look up Owen insurance group on the world wide Web. You google us. You search us on the better Business Bureau, and you will find that we have many, many five-star reviews. So do your due diligence on the company that you plan to do business with and or the agent or the agency, and then call to find out what the different premiums would be with the different various carriers. Let that insurance broker, that independent broker, do the heavy lifting on your behalf. That is the resource that we provide. That's the value that we provide. And again, all you got to do is pick up the phone, call 772-210-1020 now. Can our viewers also get long term or short term disability through work? They sure can. It depends if the employer offers that. And I believe next week we're going to be talking about voluntary benefits that employers can provide for their employees. Or if you're an employee and you want your employer to hear about it, certainly give us a call. That's right. And we'd be happy to talk about that. But yes, it can be both at work as well as you can hold your own, and I believe you can actually have both.  

Yeah. And typically, if you have a work benefit, short term or long term disability, usually they're guaranteed issue because of the group. Right. Whereas individual policies you must go through health underwriting. The nurse is going to come out, she's going to draw blood, urine, and ask you a bunch of medical questions. Ask what drugs you're taking. Ask what your risk activities are. Are you a scuba diver? Do you race? And do you ride a motorcycle? Things of these this situation will raise your premiums if you're maybe unhealthy, taking more prescriptions than usual and maybe overweight. So all these considerations are wrapped in and then a suggested premium is what's going to be provided to you from the underwriter. And then you can make a decision on whether or not you want to accept or reject that. Let's say that the premium is coming in a higher than what we rented on. Based on your health background, you can always lower the monthly base benefit to bring down those premiums. There are ways that you can get a policy that's affordable. So again, all you have to do is call Owen Insurance Group, or stop by. We're located at 1611 NW Federal Highway, right over the Roosevelt Bridge, just about a half a mile north of the Roosevelt Bridge. And we're right next to beaches MRI, and the phone number again is 772-210-1020.  

And now, Gary, I know there will be some people who have actually called our office and they will say things like, Gary, last week I had an accident, and I can't work for the next six months. Can I purchase some of that disability insurance? Isn't that amazing that we get those mean we shouldn't be laughing, but I'm sorry, it's not funny. But it is because people wait until they get sick. We had one person that had cancer who cancer insurance – too late!  

I've had several. Yeah.  

Can I buy that cancer policy? Oh, sure. So the moral of the story is, the younger you are, the healthier you are.  You want to get policies in place when you don't need it. That's what insurance is all about.  

Because the insurance policy needs to be there when you do need it. And when you do need it, you're not going to be able to get it. As Gary said, people have called and God bless them. I mean, they're grasping for straws and they're desperate, and it's a terrible situation. That's why you don't prepare for the rain and get the boots and have the umbrella ready at the door or in their closet. When you don't do all that when it's pouring rain, you have it all prepared and ready when it's a beautiful sunny day, because sure as the sun comes up in the morning and sets at night, it's going to turn dark gray and there will be a rainy day. And on all of our lives, no matter what we think, what we hope, what we pray, what we wish for, no matter how healthy we are, sooner or later we're going to have an accident or a sickness that's going to put us out. And maybe not. You may not ever need it.  

But I'll tell you that, the peace of mind and the stress free living you can have when you know you're protected, it's amazing.  

62 million people last year with an injury. 62 million. So it's important that you have the coverage. Like Tom said, get it now while you're young, while you're healthy, while you can still get approved for a policy. Again, the number one.  The number one insurance to have is that policy that protects your paycheck. So it's important to do it. Actually, it depends on many factors. The price will depend on many factors, as we discussed, so don't put in your head. Hey, you said $107. I can't afford $107. I can afford $50. Okay, well, then we'll fine tune a policy and create policy for you that fits your budget, right? So maybe you're not going to be able to get $60,000 a year in benefit at $50 a month, but maybe you can get 30, right? That's right. So, anyway, we're here to help. Just pick up the phone to give us a call. 772-210-1020. I've been given the finger that we have 1 minute left, so that means that we got to sign off. And then coming up next stay tuned is the Brian Kilmeade show. And listen, folks, please tell your friends, your family, your neighbors, everyone that you know about the world famous quality of life radio show, where we speak truth about transparency and no BS. No plop zone. And remember, Treasure Coast stay safe, keep healthy, be happy, and enjoy your quality of life.