My dad is in insurance and he said that with any occupation namely professional, someone can get "job only insurance" which pays if you cannot do a specific job ...so say you were an airline pilot and had to collect disability for going blind or a dentist and your fingers got cut off... My ex-girlfriends dad was an optometrist and he had this and got into a bad wreck and couldnt look down into the machines..the job only insurance usually pays up to I believe 2/3rds of what your salary was..but the premiums obviously are going to be high with high salaries...also I think once you are on disability you dont pay taxes..or as much.. so 2/3rds isnt that far from what you were making.. My opinion would be that if you did get arthritis <sp? you could teach or get an mba and review dental claims for insurance companies.