Comprehensive Disability Insurance Income Protection for Canada

Many Disability Insurance Plan Designs for Professionals, Business/Sales People, Technicians, Supervisors, Foremen, and Many More

Are you self employed or a business owner?

Does your company offer no Long Term Disability Insurance coverage?

Is ALL your income protected?

Is your lifestyle at risk?

Important Features and Benefits of Disability Insurance

Designing your Disability Insurance plan

Why Disability Insurance is important in Canada?

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Having adequate disability insurance for income protection in place is one of the corner-stones of your financial plan. With the chances so high that you will have at least one event of long-term disability in your life, why put your financial future at risk. There is a maximum amount of disability insurance you can purchased, based on your income. Maybe you don’t need the maximum. How much tax-free income would you need to maintain you current lifestyle in Canada?

Complete a Disability Insurance Needs Analysis.

Important Features and Benefits of Disability Insurance

What TYPE of Disability are your insured for?

The definition of what is a disability comes in three categories:

Total Disability: being unable to return to your job, even part-time or a work from home arrangement. 100% of your monthly disability benefit is paid.
Partial Disability: Losing at least 50% of time away from work, or being unable to do an important function of your job. 50% of your monthly disability benefit is paid.
Residual Disability: Able to work, but suffering loss of income due to your disability. Benefit will be paid proportionally to the percentage loss of income. For example, you made 40% less this month vs. last year due to a disability, you would get 40% of your disability benefit paid.

What is the definition of your Occupation?

Any Occupation: If you are able to do ANY type of work, even if it was different from your previous career, you are expected to return to the workforce.
Regular Occupation: If you are unable to do the job you were previously doing before you were disabled, your benefits be paid, so long as you do not re-enter the workforce in a different type of job.
Own Occupation: If you are unable to do the job you were previously doing before you were disabled, your benefits will be paid regardless of whether you start working again in a different type of occupation or not. Not available with all types of work.

How long do you wait before the disability insurance pays out?

The amount of time you wait before your benefits begin paying out is called the Elimination Period. The fastest it can pay is 30 days after you have become disabled, and you can choose to wait as long as 2 years. Most companies offer their best disability insurance premium pricing at 90 days after you disability starts. This eliminates the risk of broken bones, pulled muscles, strained backs, and other common, short-term injuries that you will recover from in a 3 month period.

Once a disability goes beyond 90 days, the average time of work is 2.9 years! This is the point at which you enter real Long-Term Disability, and is the biggest risk you need to protect against.

How long will you receive disability insurance payments for?

There are three choices of Benefit Periods:

2 Years: disability benefits paid for 24 months as a cumulative total for any disability(s) or related complications (usually not a long enough disability insurance benefit period).
5 Years: disability benefits paid for 60 months for your one disability or any other related complications. 95% of all disability insurance claimants are back to work within 5 years.
To age 65: disability benefits will continue until age 65 if you remain disabled and under a doctor’s care.

Designing your disability insurance plan

As you can see, there is a lot of complexity when building a disability insurance plan for you. The better the feature or benefit is, like coverage to age 65, own occupation, 30 day elimination period, etc., the more expensive the premiums. There is a balance that we can help you find – what you need and what you can afford.

Why disability insurance is important in Canada?

Unlike other places, Canada has a unique employment environment. Many people are working on contract, are consultants and/or are self-employed. There are also many smaller Canadian based service, IT, oil & gas companies, etc. that are new and growing and as yet do not offer group disability insurance benefits. Another unique feature is the large portion of income that is paid out in the form of bonus to managers, consultants, engineers and executives in Canada. The bonus income can make up a substantial and stable portion of total income, but because it is bonused out, it would not be covered in a group disability insurance income plan which protects regular earnings only. If you live in Canada and have a situation similar to this, you need to look at a personally owned disability insurance plan. Disability insurance provides income protection for workers in Canada in these unique, unprotected situations.

If you want more information on a disability insurance plan for you, please contact Life Guard Insurance.