Disability Insurance for Residents
by Thomas Lloyd

Most medical and dental residents understand the importance of having an “own-occupation” disability income insurance policy to protect themselves in the event of a sickness or injury.

Clearly the definition of what constitutes a disability is important because it determines when the insurance company will pay a benefit. For high-income professionals, a definition that pays a claim if they cannot work in their profession because of a sickness or injury is imperative.

Lawyers, executives, and engineers for instance want the security of knowing their claim will not be challenged because the insurance company feels their disability may allow them to work in another qualified profession.

Such language is relatively common among most of the reputable disability insurance carriers in the marketplace today. You may have noticed I did not mention physicians or dentists here – that’s because they need a different, more comprehensive definition of disability than this.

The pitfall many residents fall into is assuming all true own occupation disability policies will pay a benefit for a disability AND allow them to practice another medical or dental specialty. Sadly, the majority of carriers DO NOT offer medical specialty language within their definition of disability.

This seemingly minute piece of language can be the critical difference between a surgeon who suffers a disability having the option to practice in another medical specialty (such as internal medicine) AND receive his or her full disability benefit as opposed to being forced to work outside of the medical profession in order to ensure the benefit remains intact.

The inherent lesson here for all residents is make sure to read and confirm the disability insurance policy applied for has medical specialty, true own occupation protection. Ask the agent to provide an illustration with the definition in writing to confirm this – it is one of the most important variables for you to consider.