Life and disability insurance - not in "perfect health"

[questionablerisk]

I am a MS4 heading into residency in a procedural specialty. For obvious reasons, I have created a new account for this.

Much of the financial advice I have heard for those in my position includes a healthy focus on risk management via insurance to protect future earning potential. Often this is framed as "get disability insurance and a 20-30 year level term life policy while you are young and healthy." I am interested in any thoughts or experiences regarding this coverage for those of us who are young but already have serious known, well-managed chronic health conditions.

I have been able to find very little on what to expect in terms of medical underwriting and consequences. I imagine there are two ways this could go - exclusions or jacked up premiums. Maybe both. Anyone have any experiences, information, or advice to share?

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[QofQuimica]

I don't have a chronic illness, but I'm forty and female, which greatly ups my rates for individual disability insurance. In my case, I elected to keep my coverage from residency as individual coverage since the hospital where I did residency required that company to underwrite everyone at the same gender-neutral rate as part of their contract for providing insurance to all of the hospital's residents. I didn't even need to report any health conditions or have a physical first. You should check to see if wherever you match has a similar option. I also have group disability coverage through my current employer (though obviously I would lose that if I changed employers).

Especially since you are going into a procedural specialty, make sure your DI is own-occupation. It costs more, but if you end up in a situation where you can't do procedures but you could still, say, teach, you'll be glad you got it.

For life insurance, do you have dependents? If not, you probably won't need any. I do have group life insurance through my employer as well, but no individual policy since I have no kids. Still, if someone offs me tomorrow, my one-year-old niece is gonna be a millionaire.

 

[deleted480308]

definitely term life, don't do the "whole life" mess. the amount depends on what's going on in your life (debt/family/etc). consider things like the lifestyle you want to leave those coming behind you

"own occupation" is also definitely the way to go with a procedural type occupation. You don't want to be denied disability because you are still technically qualified to do medicare well checks (or some other thing) all day for 1/4 of you current income

 

[MarkFinancialAdvisor]

I am a MS4 heading into residency in a procedural specialty. For obvious reasons, I have created a new account for this.

Much of the financial advice I have heard for those in my position includes a healthy focus on risk management via insurance to protect future earning potential. Often this is framed as "get disability insurance and a 20-30 year level term life policy while you are young and healthy." I am interested in any thoughts or experiences regarding this coverage for those of us who are young but already have serious known, well-managed chronic health conditions.

I have been able to find very little on what to expect in terms of medical underwriting and consequences. I imagine there are two ways this could go - exclusions or jacked up premiums. Maybe both. Anyone have any experiences, information, or advice to share?

I all depends on the severity of your health problems. In most cases for disability insurance, your policy would be issued with an exclusion rider with no increase in your premium. For life insurance, you may receive a higher premium but there would not be any exclusions. The only way to get a better idea, is to go through the disability insurance and life insurance underwriting process. The insurance company would have you take an insurance exam and get medical records from your doctors. They would then come back with an underwriting decision. Please let me know if I can be of any help to you.

 

[TooMuchResearch]

I am a MS4 heading into residency in a procedural specialty. For obvious reasons, I have created a new account for this.

Much of the financial advice I have heard for those in my position includes a healthy focus on risk management via insurance to protect future earning potential. Often this is framed as "get disability insurance and a 20-30 year level term life policy while you are young and healthy." I am interested in any thoughts or experiences regarding this coverage for those of us who are young but already have serious known, well-managed chronic health conditions.

I have been able to find very little on what to expect in terms of medical underwriting and consequences. I imagine there are two ways this could go - exclusions or jacked up premiums. Maybe both. Anyone have any experiences, information, or advice to share?

Some residencies have agreements with insurers for resident access to individual DI policies without full medical exams and no medical history exclusions/waivers. The limit tends to be lower than a policy with normal medical exclusions. Our policy is capped at $10k/month after residency (+$2500/month total disability rider).

Strangely, no one in my program knew about it, but the agent did.

 

[QofQuimica]

Some residencies have agreements with insurers for resident access to individual DI policies without full medical exams and no medical history exclusions/waivers. The limit tends to be lower than a policy with normal medical exclusions. Our policy is capped at $10k/month after residency (+$2500/month total disability rider).

Right, that's the kind of deal I have.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Great post recently on your question: http://whitecoatinvestor.com/disability-insurance-limitations-and-exclusions/