Name: Open Enrollment: Should You Buy Disability Insurance?
Uploaded: 2023-11-08T22:31:00Z
Duration: 5 min 9 s
Description: More companies are offering disability insurance as part of annual benefits options. WSJ personal-finance reporter Julia Carpenter joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss questions employees should ask before signing up. Photo: Getty Images

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More companies are offering disability insurance as part of annual benefits options. WSJ personal-finance reporter Julia Carpenter joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss questions employees should ask before signing up. Photo: Getty Images

https://m.wsj.net/video/20231108/f22c62e5-c3f1-426b-b25f-147ccd194ca5/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Open Enrollment: Should You Buy Disability Insurance?

J.R: Here's your money briefing for Wednesday, November 8th. I'm J.R. Whalen for the "Wall Street Journal". Workers signing up for company provided health benefits this month will have the option of selecting disability insurance, but it often involves layers of confusing details that might drive people away. "Wall Street Journal" personal finance reporter, Julia Carpenter joins me, so Julia, what does a typical disability insurance policy cost?

Julia: A typical insurance policy costs somewhere between 1% to 3% of your income. So if you're seeing quotes for 4%, 5% or higher, that's likely not a good deal in the world of this coverage.

J.R: For a lot of people, it makes sense to select things like medical coverage to cover doctor visits and prescriptions. But why would someone consider disability insurance?

Julia: Disability insurance is definitely worst case scenario planning, you are planning for the possibility that you will become disabled either due to an illness or an injury or something else, and you'll be unable to work for a period of time and you'll need your income replaced. I spoke with one expert who said that to him, long-term disability insurance is just as essential as health insurance. He has seen too many people fall ill and they need that income in order to continue living the life they lead. I spoke with one consultant and he said, "listen, everyone needs long-term disability insurance unless you are incredibly wealthy in your own right and not worried at all about funding anything that could happen in the future." Most people aren't in that position, so they should consider that, especially as they're nearing any sort of health concern or if they work in a particular industry, that is, maybe they've seen other coworkers fall prey to some of this stuff, but it's also something that people should consider if they are looking to get pregnant in the coming year and might wanna take their maternity benefits as a result. Or people who see that the policy is somewhere again between that 1% and 3% because in that case, it's just as affordable as dental insurance.

Julia: Why are more companies offering disability insurance as part of the benefit options?

Julia: Several states, including New York, California, Rhode Island and others actually legally require companies to offer short-term disability insurance to their employees.

J.R: If somebody is injured or disabled and they have to leave work for months at a time, now all of a sudden their income is turned off. How does disability insurance protect somebody's finances?

Julia: So there is public disability insurance and what long-term disability insurance does is it adds onto that, so public disability insurance is a very lengthy, very arduous process and ultimately, you'll probably get about 40% of your income replaced. This long-term disability insurance is like a wraparound plan to that, it's augmenting that so that you can replace your entire income and continue leading the life that you live now.

J.R: You mentioned maternity leave a moment ago. How does disability insurance benefit somebody who takes time off from work to have a baby?

Julia: So for people who don't have maternity leave protected through their job or don't have time off protected through their job, short-term disability insurance is a great way to get that time off during this period of time. And I know we don't typically think about pregnancy or maternal health as a disability, "in the precise definition," but under many policies we can count that and people are able to take advantage of it.

J.R: Young workers who are going through their first open enrollment process, they may say disability insurance and think, "why do I need that? I'm not in danger of getting hurt or injuring myself."

Julia: I spoke with Jonathan Gruber, he's a professor of economics at MIT, and he said that he often talks to people, he called them Young Invincibles, who feel that things like disability insurance or planning for retirement, that they don't need to do right now, that they can wait to do at some later date, and in his words, "they're wrong on both fronts." That planning for a worst case scenario, not being able to work due to a disability is essential precisely because you don't see it coming.

J.R: Seems like there are a lot of details to this type of insurance that can make it confusing. What questions should somebody ask their company's benefits staff to help them make an informed decision about signing up?

Julia: I'm glad you brought that up because talking to the benefits staff about your benefits is something I don't think enough people do. They read the packet or they go on the benefits website. There's a lot of confusing language, there's a lot of paperwork, and they just checks some boxes, fill out the Scantron and run away. And talking to your benefits person about disability insurance, some of the things you should ask are what is provided again, short term, long term, some of these other supplemental insurances, and how much the policy costs and what that will cost you a month. In many cases, it might be as little as $20 a month to protect yourself against tragedy coming down the road.

J.R: That's Wall Street Journal personal finance reporter, Julia Carpenter, and that's it for "Your Money Briefing." We'll be back tomorrow morning with WSJ's Lauren Weber to discuss workers pushing back against return to work policies alleging mental health discrimination. This episode was produced by me, J.R. Whalen, with supervising producer Melony Roy. Thanks for listening.

WSJ's Your Money Briefing podcast is your personal-finance and career checklist. Finance reporters and experts break down complicated money questions every weekday to help you make better decisions about managing your money. 

Open Enrollment: Should You Buy Disability Insurance?

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