A lot of people know that doctors carry disability insurance.
But not very many people know the pros and cons of this decision.
The truth of the matter is that it’s usually in your best interest, as a medical professional, to carry physicians’ disability insurance as you conduct your medical practice.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s all upside.
In fact, even though there are a lot of pros to having physician disability insurance, there are also a number of cons to consider as well.
Note that these cons don’t necessarily mean that carrying disability insurance is a bad thing for a physician.
Rather, the issue would be the policy.
The idea would be to find a physician disability insurance policy that minimizes all of the downsides while giving you access to the benefits.
So in this blog post, you are going to learn exactly what to look for to spot these pros and cons.
Let’s dive into it.
Pros Of Physician Disability Insurance
First, let’s talk about the upsides of physician disability insurance.
1. Income Replacement
One of the most obvious benefits of physician disability insurance is the fact that it can provide you with a monthly income if you end up unable to work due to an illness or injury.
This is really the main selling point of the insurance overall.
This kind of insurance can help you, as a physician, to cover your bills in the case of being unable to work due to some kind of unforeseen health disaster.
2. Peace Of Mind
Peace of mind is one of the primary benefits of physician disability insurance.
If you end up sick, injured, and/or otherwise unable to perform the day-to-day duties of your job as a physician, then you’d stand to lose your income if you didn’t have some kind of protection.
And physician disability insurance provides you with that protection.
3. Tax Benefits
One super cool feature of most physician disability insurance policies is that they are tax deductible.
In other words, you can usually write off the insurance premiums to save money on your taxes.
4. Portability
Another awesome feature of physician disability insurance is that you can take it with you if you change jobs.
This protects you from losing your coverage if you change jobs and end up with some kind of gap that could put you at risk.
Cons Of Physician Disability Insurance
Alright. Now, it’s time to talk about the downsides.
1. Cost Of The Policy
As a physician, you’re likely a high-income earner—which means that a disability insurance premium can be relatively expensive.
Now, you can sometimes lower the cost of your premium by finding a fantastic plan and shopping around to compare different rates.
But at the end of the day, as a high earner, if you want physician disability insurance—you’re likely going to need to shell out a significant amount of cash to get it.
2. The Waiting Period
Most disability policies have a waiting period, which means that there’s a certain amount of time that you need to spend ‘disabled’ before your benefits will kick in.
The better your policy is (and generally, the more you pay for it), the less severe this waiting tends to be.
But, it’s just another aspect of the process that you need to go through in order to receive the benefits—and it certainly isn’t anyone’s favorite part of it.
3. Eligibility Requirements
Unfortunately, not everyone is eligible for disability insurance.
In fact, even if you’re a physician with a significant income, you can still be denied coverage in some cases based on certain pre-existing conditions.
This is definitely bad news for doctors who need to deal with such conditions, because it could impede your ability to protect yourself with a disability insurance policy.
This is one of the biggest cons of the disability insurance process—but it really only affects people who actually have some kind of eligibility issue.
Conclusion
There you have it.
Everything you need to know about the pros and cons of physician disability insurance.
Equipped with this information, you’re now ready to get out there and make a concrete choice about your own physician disability policy.
Whether you choose to get a policy or to skip it, just remember that the choice is yours and that you should always do what’s in your own best self-interest, based on the context of your life.
In other words—you do you!
