Should I keep my own-occupation disability insurance now that I'm working non-clinically?

[BreadXray]

(Forgive me as this isn't related to Anesthesiology, but this seems to be one of the more active attending forums)

I got a pretty basic own-occupation disability insurance policy back in residency. I recently left clinical medicine and I'm looking for opinions on what to do with this policy moving forward.

On the one hand, I don't know anyone outside of medicine who has an extra disability insurance policy--people just use whatever is available as a benefit through their job.

On the other hand, even though I am not doing procedures, I could still be disabled from doing my job if I had a severe injury that affected my mental faculties or my ability to perform ADLs.

I am a fairly risk-averse person, so I am leaning towards just keeping it.

Any advice from the group?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Dantrolene FC]

I would recommend asking this question on the insurance forum on whitecoatinvestor.com

 

[MD Financial Services Scott]

Most folks have no idea of how their employer plan works and 95% have never read the actual policy that they are counting on in case of a disability. In the simplest terms, for group plans, while one is working making $X then minus taxes of 30-40% to net a paycheck to spend/save, all seems ok with that. Few understand that when they see 60% of pay as a benefit payout on that disability plan that the benefit to be received is 99% of the time taxed (loss of another 25% apx.) so if money was tight when one was working then one won't be able to survive on the disability payment. What a disability payment from group insurance usually turns into is about 40-45% of one's pre-disability earning as a spendable dollar. I am not even going to get into the income offset provisions but that is why most folks who earn good money have a tendency to look at individual disability insurance.

 

[linkin06]

I’d always keep the basic open policy. Seems like the group ones can become useless when push comes to shove. Keep your own policy until you can financially insure yourself and then drop it.