Insurance World

How long could you and your family get by without your income? A month? Maybe three? What would happen if you were unable to work for a year or more? The simple fact is that most of us don’t have the cash reserves to weather an unexpected loss of income in the event a serious injury or illness prevents us from working. And besides, you don’t want to deplete the money you’ve been saving for retirement or your children’s education just to keep the bank from foreclosing on your house.

Think you don’t need disability insurance? You’re healthy and you don’t work in a high-risk occupation, right? So what’s the chance anything could happen? According to a Gallup survey, most people estimate they have only a 16 percent chance of becoming disabled during their working years. But statistics show that a 35-year-old individual has a 50 percent chance of incurring a disability for 90 days or more before they turn 65.

You can’t predict when you’ll need disability insurance or why. But consider that back disorders are the most commonly cited conditions that cause working limitations, followed by heart disease and arthritis.

“Disability insurance protects your family’s financial security. Plus, benefits can be paid directly to you – you can receive a benefits check made out to your name, which you can then use to pay for your living expenses,” said Brad Buechler, first vice president and actuary at Mutual of Omaha. He pointed out that almost 50 percent of all residential mortgage foreclosures are brought about by a disability.

Even if you have long-term disability insurance through your employer, you may want to consider an individual policy as well. Group long-term disability insurance benefits offered through employers typically guarantee replacement of 50 to 60 percent of your salary and begin when sick leave and short-term disability benefits stop. This may not be enough to meet your needs in the event of disability. Also keep in mind that benefits from an employer-paid plan generally are taxable, while individual policies pay benefits free of income tax. Finally, individual coverages are portable and don’t automatically terminate if you change jobs, unlike group coverages obtained through your employer.

To determine if an individual disability policy is right for you, figure out if the total benefit from your group policy would be enough to support you and your family. Typical expenses for most families include groceries, mortgage payments or rent, utility bills, car payments and clothing. Make a list of your expenses and then ask yourself the following questions:

* Do I have disability insurance through my employer? If so, are the benefits sufficient to allow me to maintain my standard of living if I become disabled?

* If my current benefits are not sufficient, what expenses will I cut if my income is reduced by half?

* What other sources of income do I have in the event I can’t work?

* Would my spouse’s income be sufficient to pay my family’s bills?

A good rule of thumb, according to Mutual of Omaha’s Buechler, is to allocate 1 to 2 percent of your income for supplemental insurance, such as disability coverage. The cost of an individual disability policy is reasonable, especially when you consider what is at stake if you don’t have the coverage and become disabled, a much more likely event than most people realize.

For any driver, finding the best car insurance company is an important task. While the insurance we take out for our automobiles is, much like the health insurance we choose for our families, a service we hope to have very little need to avail of, there is little doubt that should the worst happen, we hope that we will have chosen our car insurance company wisely. For any individual, however, or even the group of individuals we might know, like our family and friends, exposure to insurance companies will have been limited. But thankfully, there are people who deal with car repairs on a regular basis, making them ideally placed to help us select the best car insurance company for our needs.

Who on earth are these experts, you might ask, and how on earth can we find them? The answer is simple, and you will be able to locate them in your own area more easily than you might think. Simple take a quick trip down to your local auto body repair shop, and you will find yourself in the midst of several car experts, who will each have amassed, through their years of experience in dealing with them, an essential insight into the workings of your local car insurance companies.

There are two groups of people that we call if we are unfortunate enough to find ourselves in an auto accident – the car insurance company with whom we took out our personal policy and the local body repair shop. Because these are our two ports of call when dealing with this kind of event, they necessarily have quite a bit of interaction with one another, making them ideally placed to determine the reliability and professionalism of the other’s operations. So if you are trying to find the best auto insurance company in your area, why not give them a call, or better yet, pay them a quick visit?

Body shop managers and other personnel deal with insurance adjusters from several companies as a natural part of the course of their day. They will be able to tell you which car insurance companies are most professional, which are speedy in their response. Car repair shop workers will have the hands on experience of car insurance companies that allows them to determine which carriers offer the most user-friendly claims procedures, and which offer customers a more time-consuming and complicated service. They are ideally placed to offer you an unbiased opinion on which companies they would assign the best overall ratings in terms of the quality of the product they provide, and the quality of the customer service.

When you are unfortunate enough to experience an accident in your vehicle, you will want to deal with people who are both speedy and professional, and no one can offer you a better insight to this end than the body shop workers who deal with car insurance companies every day. So if you are looking for reliable and unbiased ratings of the best companies around, then don’t forget to give the body shop a call.