Provider Plus is one of the very few policies today to offer a "lifetime" benefit period. Our Graded Lifetime Extension Benefit Period (X45) is designed specifically to assist you in completing your retirement planning in the event you become disabled. Consider this: Your retirement savings will be accumulated during your working years-yet a total disability could force you to stop making contributions. This can be particularly devastating if you are disabled when you are young. On the other hand, the older you are when you become totally disabled, the more time your retirement savings will have had to grow. After age 65, the larger fund would reduce the amount of benefit needed from a disability income insurance policy.

Consider a policy that pays a $5,000 monthly benefit, with a graded lifetime (X45) extended benefit period. If you are totally disabled at or before age 45 and remain disabled to age 65, we will pay you $5,000 a month (100% of the total disability benefit) for the rest of your life, as long as you remain totally disabled.

If you are totally disabled at age 50 and remain so until age 65, under the same policy you would receive $5,000 a month till you reach age 65. After that, as long as you remain totally disabled, the lifetime benefit would be 75% of the monthly benefit for total disability, or $3,750 a month for life. This is because the amount of monthly benefit payable after age 65 is determined by your age at the time total disability began-it reduces 5% for each year beyond age 45 that your disability begins.

Scenario:

• $5,000 monthly benefit
• Graded Lifetime Extension Benefit Period (X45) included

Obviously your assumed retirement income may be more (or less) than shown. The disability benefit is fixed by the policy. However, if a Cost of Living Adjustment Rider increases the disability benefit prior to age 65, your lifetime benefit will be larger than illustrated above.

Make the intelligent choice by choosing a lifetime disability benefit period that complements your retirement planning.

* The Graded Lifetime Extension Benefit Period is available to occupation classes 6, 5, 4, 4P and 3.

During an extended disability traditional fixed dollar benefits can't help you keep pace with inflation. This is why a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) Rider is an important benefit. Under the Provider Plus COLA rider, annual adjustments to the monthly benefit begin after 12 months of disability and continue to age 65. The increases are tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) up to a maximum compounded annual rate of 3% or 6%, whichever you choose.

Let's look at how dramatically the COLA rider can increase your monthly benefits over time.

Scenario:

• $5,000 monthly benefit
• 3-month elimination period
• Totally disabled from age 45 to age 65
• To-age-65 benefit period including COLA rider
• 6% maximum annual rate

Most other DI companies also offer COLA riders. But some, like the company whose policy is shown below, offer only fixed interest adjustments. You can easily see how much more Provider Plus would pay if inflation were higher than the 3% shown for Policy X: $103,015 more in cumulative benefit after 10 years, and a whopping $549,913 after 2O! Others offer only simple rather than compounded rates, and some actually impose a cap on increases prior to age 65. We, of course, compound annually and our rider adjusts benefits at the end of each 12 months of disability with no limit before age 65.

*This rider is not necessarily protection against increases in the cost of living. It is available to occupation classes 6, 5, 4, 4P and 3.
** Increases stop after age 65.

What happens to COLA increases when you recover? With Provider Plus, any increases to the monthly benefit due to indexing remain as part of the policy's base benefit - at no additional premium until you reach age 65.* Other companies typically revert to the original benefit or allow you to buy up to the indexed benefit by paying additional premiums.

* After that you can retain the increases by paying then-current renewal rates.

If you expect to have significant income growth you may need a Future Increase Option (FIO) Rider. It offers you the opportunity-each year until you reach age 55-to purchase additional coverage with-out providing evidence of medical insurability.

The amount of the Future Increase Option added to the base policy can be up to twice the base benefit plus all other in-force coverage with Berkshire and Guardian.** Until you reach age 45 you can exercise the entire FIO amount on your option date if your income justifies it. Once you become 45, up to one-third of the FIO amount is available in any one year. Few other companies offer you such flexibility.

*The Future Increase Option Rider is available to occupation classes 6, 5, 4, 4P and 3.
** Including Guardian Group LTD

Because compound interest is used to calculate increases, your total monthly benefits will have increased by 2 1.6% at the end of five years! AIR represents a convenient, flexible way for you to insure your increasing income - and insure against changes in your health or occupation - before you become disabled.

*The automatic increase rider is available to occupation classes 6, 5, 4, 4P and 3.

Since benefits from various types of social insurance may or may not be payable for a given disability, a Social Insurance Substitute Rider (SIS) helps fill in the voids. Let's see how this works in combination with a base benefit of $2,000. We can issue up to $1,500 a month in SIS benefit. When you are disabled, you will receive the SIS benefit less any monthly benefits paid by social insurance. With a $1,500 per month SIS benefit for example, if you receive $800 a month in benefits from social insurance, your SIS benefit would be $700. You would receive a total of $1,500. This is known as a "dollar for dollar" offset.
The company that issues Policy X, however, takes a different approach: It offers a rider that pays literally all or nothing. In other words, if you receive $800 from social insurance, Policy X will pay you no benefits at all, leaving you with a total integrated monthly benefit of $2,800. With Provider Plus, you would, as shown above, have a combined benefit of $3,500 a month.
The company that offers Policy Y handles things in yet another way. While it will pay 100% of its SIS benefit if you don't receive any benefits from any government program, if you receive a benefit from any one government agency it will pay you only one-third of the SIS benefit. So, as the example demonstrates, if you received $800 from one social insurance program, Policy Y would pay only $500 of your potential $1,500 benefit. That would add up to an integrated benefit of $3,300 a month compared with the $3,500 you'd have with Provider Plus. And if you receive benefits from two or more social insurance programs, Policy Y pays no benefit at all!

* In New York and New Jersey only: For occupation classes 6, 5, 4, 4P and 3, the SIS benefit is paid if you are not receiving any benefits from Social Security. This rider is not available in California.

The Group Disability Insurance Replacement Rider allows you to increase the monthly coverage of your Provider Plus policy if your group long-term disability (LTD) plan terminates. Your group LTD may be terminated for one of two reasons: Your employment terminates, or your employer ends the group LTD plan and doesn't replace it.

We require no evidence of good health in order for you to exercise our Group Replacement Option, but you can only use it once over the life of the policy. The rider itself is renewable to age 60 or until the date you exercise it. In order to exercise the replacement option, you must provide details of your income, employment and other insurance in force or for which you are eligible.

We also offer an Unemployment Premium Waiver Option Rider. Under this rider, we will waive your Provider Plus premiums if you become unemployed. To qualify for benefits under this rider you must receive unemployment compensation for at least 60 consecutive days. Your premiums will be waived for 12 months even if you return to work. You can only exercise this option once over the life of the policy; the rider itself is renewable to age 60 or until the date you exercise it.

* Not available in all states.