You must be dealing with an 'old school' agent/agency because every disability carrier (the big 6) all do electronic apps and electronic payments, in fact some carriers are getting ready to add a discount to the premiums for clients that will do e-app and e-delivery. That discount is being instituted to help push agents to do things electronically vs. paper and check, the carriers do not want the paper for multiple reasons.
Your rates, if you are typical of resident age and not in CA, should be about $18-$25 per month per $1,000 of monthly benefit unless you get a graded contract then it might be $14-$18 per month per $1,000 of monthly benefit.
That sounds like a lot. If I want occupational disability insurance that would cover my approximate attending physician salary, I would have to pay $500 a month? Now I don’t even want to bother wasting my time.
Everything is dependent on age, gender, specialty and state you live in. After that it is just a function of how much benefit you want/need. Most attendings end up with between $10,000 -$15,000 per month of tax free benefit costing $200-$300 per month, that is pretty typical. Keep in mind that you can't buy a disability policy that is going to pay you every dollar of your attending salary so if one has an income of $350,000 they can buy about $15,000 of income protection but that is assuming that you don't have employer sponsored group insurance, if you do you will not be allowed to buy the $15k, it would probably be more in the $10k range.
My DI ($5000/year coverage, plus others) is $115/month. $15 of that is extra add ons.
That sounds kind of right on at $115 for $5k, that comes out to a total of $23 per month per $1,000 of monthly benefit.
Mine is a bit higher than this, but also being a surgeon bumps up your risk class vs other specialties.
Nope, I just went with what the residency offered (the highest levels of both DI and LI offered that didn't require additional health check/ paperwork). I know one of my co-interns who's wife is also having a kid went with private insurance because the coverage was better (but also he's a man so probably pregnancy disclosure was not a thing for him). This is our first foray into these things, so I wanted to keep it simple (lots of firsts, first real salary in 4 years, first time homeowners, first kid). I do want to be more financially responsible going forward (a lot of med school was me trying to not have panic attacks from thinking about the financial consequences of my decision to attend), but I'm easing in starting with things like maxing our my annual Roth IRA. As it is, due to opting for better health insurance, DI, LI, etc. my first paycheck was substantially less than what one of my co-interns shared with me, but hey, at least I am back to having a salary and I'd rather have the good insurances just in case for my family's sake.
You probably are having some invites delayed due to programs switching to Step 2 screening this year and not yet having your score. But there is nothing you can do except sit your Step 2 in a couple weeks, wait for the results, and see if that triggers some invites. Don't let yourself sit awake at night worrying about this, stressing won't influence anything.
