To help bring attention to the need for disability insurance, May is Disability Insurance Awareness Month. Created and organized by the nonprofit Life Happens and supported by the Council for Disability Awareness, it’s an annual campaign to help educate the public about the very real risks of disability and the importance of income protection planning.
In honor of the occasion, we thought we’d share 10 surprising facts about disability.
Did you know?
- Many employees think their chance of being disabled for three months or more is only 1%.
- 1 in 5 think they are more likely to win the Lottery than be disabled for more than three months.
- The truth is, over 25% of today’s 20-year-olds (more than 1 in 4) will experience disability lasting three months or longer before they hit retirement age.
- Accidents aren’t usually the problem. In fact, they account for only 10.6% of the disability claims filed in 2014.
- More common culprits include back or joint problems, cancer, heart disease and mental disorders, which together cause the majority of disabilities (more than 60%).
- If an employee’s disability lasts 2.6 years, that’s 135 weekly paychecks missed. Assuming an average wage, that’s enough money to buy six compact cars.
- Because of child-birth and increased risk of heart disease, women are at the biggest risk to be out of work for more than three months.
- Every seven seconds, a working-age American experiences an illness, injury or accident that puts him/her out of work for at least a month.
- A disability lasting more than three months can be devastating to a person’s financial situation. More than half of Americans would tap into savings or investments to pay bills if out of work.
- 77% say they could not pay their bills for more than a year without an income.
Want to learn more?
You can find out your own chances of disability (i.e., your Personal Disability Quotient) by taking the PDQ quiz here. Want to calculate how much your income is worth in the long run? Click here to get your Earnable Income Quotient.
Disability can happen. Together, let’s debunk the “disability disconnect,” and help you and your employees protect your paychecks.
If you don’t have paycheck protection, now is the time to get a policy. We offer several smart Texas business insurance options such as key person DI and business overhead expense policies. If you don’t offer long-term disability to your team, ask us about group and voluntary plans for your workforce.
