It seems as though we go through a good portion of our lives feeling like we're "insurance poor", meaning we're always paying on one type of insurance or another. A lot of this is true as there are many types of insurance policies out there: auto insurance, home insurance, health insurance, retirement insurance – it seems as though there's no end to the many types of insurances we're expected to pay. However, where would we be without many of these extremely important insurances such as disability and life insurance?

Disability and Life Insurance Benefits

Insurances such as homeowner's, auto or health are something few people need to be reminded to have. However, the threat of loss due to disability and/or death is higher than we realize. The statistics are staggering. An injury that causes disability happens every 1.3 seconds on and off the job. That totals up to over 23 million each year. For every 10 workers, 3 of them will become disabled before they reach retirement age. Almost 50% of the 6.8 million workers that are currently collecting Social Security disability benefits are under the age of 50. Over half of the workforce provides no private disability coverage. Where does this leave us? It leaves us in a position where we need to ensure that we have some sort of disability insurance.

Types of Disability Insurance

Disability insurance is usually broken down into one of two categories: short term disability or long-term disability.  You can get disability insurance from your employer or you may purchase it on your own. Short term disability is what the name implies. It will pay you a weekly or monthly amount for a covered physical disease on a short term basis, depending on the provisions in the policy. With a long term disability, you'll be paid an amount of money for a longer period, often all of your life if you have a covered physical disease or disability. Disability insurance will require that you're disabled for a minimum number of days before they'll begin paying. The individual requirements and exclusions will depend on the policy holder.

Disability insurance that you can buy on your own is becoming very popular and has been for many years now. You pay the premium yourself and the insurance company will pay you a certain dollar amount for each illness or accident, whether you have other insurance or not. Many people enjoy these because they can get up to $100 per day if they're sick and off work and this is money in addition to any disability benefit they may get from work.

Life Insurance Benefits

The importance of life insurance cannot be overemphasized. While most employers provide their employees with life insurance benefits, it's usually a small amount and not much more than what it would cost them for funeral expenses. However, many employers will give you the option to purchase more life insurance at a special price. If your employer does not provide this option, there are many options for life insurance benefits you can purchase from independent life insurance companies. You can purchase whole life, term life or a combination. Nothing is worse for surviving family members losing a loved one than being saddled with unnecessary expenses that they cannot afford to pay. Life insurance benefits will easily take away that worry.