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What do you think of their disability plan? There are some older threads saying NW is not that great but I believe these threads/articles are outdated and the plan has since changed..
Northwestern Disability Insurance
- Thread starter pathwizard
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They only have an Own Occupation and Not Engaged definition. The way you can make your way through the clutter is to ask the follow question, "if I can't do my specialty that I was doing at the time of claim but post disability start a business or another job where I make the same amount of money as I did prior to disability, how much benefit does this policy pay"? Northwestern will be $0 as all Own Occupation Not Engaged definitions will be, it is not a big deal but that is the case. Only True Own Specialty Policies will be able to answer 100%, as of today Principal, Guardian, Ameritas, Standard, Ohio, and Mass can say that. Now you are going to hear is "well that is not probable, or would you not want to just stay home" or something like that but the fact is those only pay you if you don't work in another occupation for wage or profit. I hope that helps.
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I was actually in this position last week. Financial agent was saying that NW's "med-occ" definition is better for med/dental... I'm not sure if he was basing that only on the NAME being geared towards our professions, but upon more research, ultimately their 'med-occ' definition appears to actually fall short (not even equal) of the traditional "own-occ/own-specialty" definition given by the big six (guardian, principal, standard, mass mutual, metlife, ameritas)
Also, the NW policy ended up not even being cheaper when compared to the others! Including the same riders, it was more expensive at something like 5-6% (which I believe should be more like 2.5-3.5%). It was like $175/mo for $3000 (didn't get a quote for $5k or $10k).
Related Links:
1) Disability Insurance Options- Guardian or Northwestern Mutual?
2) Doctor Disability Shop | North Western Mutual’s Disability Insurance Product for Doctors
3) Why not Northwestern Mutual physician disability insurance? – Friday Q&A Series
I'll probably be going with doctordisability if not hitting up Scott 😛.
PS while you're here Scott, as a specialty, would an orthodontist be considered at lower risk like radiology or some of the other lower impact specialties? I am a general dentist now, but starting in ortho residency this summer.. I was guessing I would want to look into DI as a resident to be considered for ortho specialty occupation definition rather than as a general dentist? Also to get any 'resident discounts' or is that medical specialties only? Orrrrr would it be more beneficial to look to get it now while I have the income of a GD rather than a resident and thus more to insure? Thx!!
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It is funny, I know all of owners of the insurance firms you referenced in your post....our insurance world is small!
As for your question about costs, some carriers are the same some cost for Ortho and Dentistry but others are for more for dentistry than Ortho, I don't think any carriers are less for Dentistry than Ortho but I will check. I would run the numbers on both specialties and realize that as you go from dentistry to Ortho that your contract coverage will move with you on all contracts....all of the good contracts have the same language of covering you in your specialty "at the time of claim". In addition we can get discounts for both dentists and all physicians so that comes into play for sure on pricing.
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Munks,
We did a touch of research for you and here are the Occ classes that you might be interested to know about:
Carrier: Dentist / Orthodontics
Ameritas: 5M / 5M
Principal FG: 3 A-M / 3 A-M
Guardian: 3D / 3D, 4D (New product where approved)
Mass M: 3P / 4P
The Standard: 3D, 3P (Depends on product and state) / 3D, 3P (Depends on product and state)
Ohio N: 4M / 4M
Now keep in mind having a better occupation class with one carrier does not mean that the premium is less than other carriers it simply means it is less with that particular carrier.
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Those are underwriting classifications that the carriers assign each individual specialty. As the number goes up then that means a better risk for the carrier thus a lower premium for the consumer. Munks and I were having a discussion about how each carrier classifies specialties and where one carrier might call a particular specialty a 3, 4, or 5 that does not mean the next carrier would classify the same. In addition, the cost factor for the exact same classification can still have a premium differential across carriers since they set their own pricing. Keep in mind a carrier tries to keep their books balance across genders, occupations, ages, and state of residency so this is simply one of the ways to adjust premiums to be able to either attract or dissuade buyers thus adjusting their book of business.
