Protect Your Income With Disability Insurance

I read an article in a magazine a few years ago that has stayed with me ever since. It was about a family that was involved in a serious car accident while en route to their holiday home in the mountains. Through no fault of theirs their lives changed forever that day. One of three children was killed, mom was brain damaged and the father left without the use of his legs. Today the family has been torn apart by the accident.

The two remaining children are looked after by an uncle and aunt while their mother requires around the clock care and lives in a state home. Their father, on the other hand, now lives with his parents. Unable to return to his job as a building inspector he now has an administrative position with his old company. The family had no life insurance and no disability insurance. What struck me about the story was just how vulnerable we are, how not having some sort of cover leaves us totally at the mercy of the worst that can happen to any ordinary family, on any ordinary day.

Disability insurance is a type of protection insurance that insures your income against disability. Your income is without a doubt your greatest asset. Without it you cannot provide for yourself or your family, or acquire other assets. Anybody who earns a salary needs to purchase disability insurance, not only those income earners who have dependants. Even without dependants you need to ensure that you will be financially independent without your income and that you will not become a burden to family members or to the state.

The benefits of disability insurance extend beyond income replacement. The cover you receive can be used to settle any outstanding debt, thereby easing your financial load every month. You can also use it to pay any medical bills you might have incurred. On a more positive note, funds can also be used to rebuild your life, for example to remodel your home to accommodate your disability or to customise your car.

Another form of insurance you need to consider as an income earner is dread disease cover. This type of insurance will provide a payout if you ever suffer from an illness like cancer, organ failure etc.

I often wonder about what happened to the family in that magazine. How did the kids cope without their mom and dad? Did they ever manage to live together again, independent of other family members? It is horrible reading those terrible articles but they do make one think and they often change other people's lives. I didn't have disability insurance when I first read that article. I do now.

Ruth Dekker blogs regularly on the short-term and life insurance industry. If you are interested in disability cover, life insurance company 1Lifedirect offers disability insurance, dread disease cover and life insurance policies